Promises to Keep
(Wayfarer Books, 2026)
A narrative in poems.
It’s an old story:
a church-going family man receives a violent call to become a prophet. He’s read the source material, knows how this has ended for others. But without a means of running away, he reluctantly accepts a vocation he rightly fears will result in tragedy for his family. While receiving dreams and visions, delivering sermons and prayers, frequenting political protests and police stations, being placed in handcuffs and straitjackets, the prophet attempts to speak truth to power and make it home whole, if there is a home left to return to.
Promises to Keep explores the fear and trembling and doubt required to have faith in ourselves, each other, and whatever forces may be guiding our steps. It demands we consider what we devote our lives to, what we say we love, and whether the cost of such devotion is worth it.
Matthew E. Henry’s Promises to Keep tells an old story, a story of being called. But he recognizes that the old story requires new wineskins; the calling is to be lived out amid our contemporary struggles, abominations, and beauty. His poetry rings out with ancient rhythms and contemporary lyricism, its influences stretching from the Biblical prophets to Rilke to Black Thought. This is theology at its best, offering not exegesis but poetics, finding god as it wrestles with the questions, finding wisdom in the uncertainty. Promises to Keep is a mythopoetic vision for this moment. And Henry, like his protagonist, is a prophet for our day.
~ Theodore Richards, Author of What Happened to Icarus
No poet today is writing theology quite like Matthew E. Henry. In Promises to Keep, Henry draws from a deep and varied well of sources, from the Hebrew Bible and De La Soul to Rilke and Chris Rock. From this mosaic of influences, Henry creates a masterful portrait of a flawed prophet serving a God who is “officially not fucking around.” As Henry’s prophet lives his mission by “walking naked across the border” and stuffing “kerosene soaked money down the pants of a televangelist,” Henry also shows how the call of prophecy can crater a family by giving voice to the women around his unnamed prophet. The prophet’s daughter and wife emerge as equally realized and captivating characters, trying to love someone who has moved to a place beyond their understanding. In every poem, Henry wields language like a flaming sword, cutting through to the question familiar to anyone asked to carry a load too heavy to bear: “how much is enough?”
~ Frances Klein, author of Another Life
Promises to Keep is a shocking tour de force that turns the age old struggle between God and man on its head. Told in verse, it’s a hero's journey of a modern prophet who risks losing everything to answer his God’s call. In brilliantly crafted poems that range from humorous to heartbreaking, this gripping work will resonate with casual readers and scholars alike for its profound imagery and apt literary (and Biblical) references that underscore the dilemma between what is just and what is feasible for the tortured prophet and those left in the wake of his impossible task. “You are my Tormentor, the Devastator of my family,” the Prophet declares, but to ignore the call is to “wait for His punishment.” Henry shines a light on egregious moral disgraces from the abuse of migrants and the persecution of transgender people clearly articulated in Henry's poem, the prophet has three minutes before the school board, is led out in chains. His great gift for irony and sorrow underscores our hero's contention with both the temper of an unyielding God and his own profound loss. This stunning collection invites us to question our own ideas about faith and if religion “is still a dream worth having?”
~ Linda Carney-Goodrich, author of Dot Girl
In Promises to Keep, Matthew E. Henry has created a modern testament – a poetry collection centered on the adventures of a contemporary prophet – an everyman Called to action – whose suffering echoes that of Old Testament prophets and of Christ. The epigram from Alicia Suskin Ostriker - The Nakedness of the Fathers introduces Part II and gives us the prophet’s painful questions: “...when did I assume such a burden? Where did I sign on God’s dotted line? With my mother’s milk. With invisible ink.” He is one of us – a voice calling out in an American wilderness - a participant in political and personal resistance which lands him in handcuffs and court appointed therapy. His therapist notes – “no doubt this all stems from the father figure he won’t discuss.” Promises to Keep is not written in invisible ink. Henry has created an oracle out of biblical characters, placing them in the political and personal turbulence of our sad times. An important book for understanding what we choose to devote our lives to and whether the cost of such devotion merits the struggle and pain it demands of us.
~ Anne Elezabeth Pluto – author of The Deepest Part of Dark and How Many Miles to Babylon.
Sample Poems
the prophet speaks against Rilke (previously published in Dappled Things)
YHWH reveals His heart (previously published in The Windhover)
Promises to Keep arrives on April 6, 2026.
First Edition Trade Paperback / 6 x 9 / 110pp