Teaching While Black at Wellesley Books

I’m on my book-selling hustle. Been in contact with a few different stores and as of yesterday, Teaching While Black is now available for purchase at Wellesley Books (Wellesley, MA).

I was a METCO student in Wellesley. And now the local bookstore holds a book which is bracketed by two poems about my racial awareness and centeredness being formed in that town. For better or worse.


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Two poems at Dappled Things

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I did a stint as a Christian mystic. I reality, I just read a lot about Christian mysticism, mindfullness, contemplation, meditation, acedia, and a whole trove of related materials, attempting to find…something. The Desert Mothers and Fathers, philosophers and hermits, poets and academics.

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Of course such musing birthed poetry. And, somehow, Dappled Things’ found two of them worthy of publication.

“…as yourself” ~ an attempt to find the balance between “the Golden Rule,” “the Two Great Commandments,” and the mystic’s distrust of “Self.”

“the prophet speaks against Rilke” ~ an ekphrastic response to Rainer Maria Rilke’s “Ick bin auf der Welt zu allein und doch nicht allein genug”

Two Poems Reprinted at Digging Press

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Digging Through The Fat: A Literary & Arts Journal for Cultural Omnivores republishes works from around the internet.

 
Community No 41.

Community No 41.

Two of my poems were selected for Community No 41.:

  1. “the surprising thing,” &

  2. “when asked what i learned in elementary school being bussed from Mattapan to Wellesley.”

    Both are included in my chapbook Teaching While Black.

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"Holding Peace" (CNF) published at How to Pack for Church Camp

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Every once in a while I write a short story, usually based on a real experience. A work of creative non-fiction (CNF). This one has been published by How to Pack for Church Camp.

This time I decided not to include names, to protect the guilty. I know some of the guilty are reading this right now. You went to this camp. You were in the room. You said these things. Hopefully you’re a better person now.

As for my unnamed friend: all my love, B. Now and forever.

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Sometimes submissions are an education. And sometimes you get published.

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When you write a poem entitled “an open letter to the white feminists holding a literary panel on Toni Morrison,” you don’t actually think anyone will publish it.

You send it out thinking, at the very least, some junior reader or part-time editor will have something to think about. Because following her sudden death, what writing conference would ever host a panel discussion about Toni Morrison, but not include one (1) Black woman on the dais? The one you attended. So you write a poem. And cast it upon the waters hoping it will do some good.

{It’s like writing a poem entitled “an open letter to the poetry editor of [name withheld on advice from counsel]” about a passive aggressive, racially charged exchange with an editor: no one will ever publish that poem, but those who read it might think about how they interact with their submitters of color after reading it. }

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And then you get an email saying that someone does want to publish a poem about well-meaning, but misguided white women, and you’re shocked.

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An Advent/Christmas poem (I completely forgot I wrote)

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Advent

Christ climbed down
from His bare Tree
this year
~ Lawrence Ferlinghetti

beside a manger scene, He surveys the wonder of
His pasty complexion surrounded by solemn faces:
the pallor upon the Ikea cast, assembled around

His waxy facade, causes even His capillaries to cringe
as speakers hidden in synthetic straw capture
how the original animals couldn’t keep silent –

the apparent theology of a rum pa pumb pumb aside.
entering the service filled with seasonal sons and daughters
He sniffs for the familiar scent of worship – the sweet censer

of honest meditation, but this multitude presents only
a facsimile of praise: the stench of filthy rags hidden
beneath scented candles and choir robes.

eyes raised, He notices His cross covered by a crown of fir,
and before the altar, the holy family in flannel: a pageant
of preschoolers deified by proud parents. turning to leave,

His shirt sucks to His right side. rushing past unnoticed,
barely beyond beveled doors, the ground clutches His knees;
He falls beneath the phantom of wooden weight.

tasting the gall, He vomits. from above a hand touches
His now sensitive shoulder, and a man with no place
to rest his head, offers all he has: a cotton cloth stained

with gin and dried blood. Christ accepts and wipes His mouth.
His savior nods to the tiny plastic persona beside them and smiles
before limping away with a song: a rum pa pumb pumb.

Published in the anthology Love Among Us (2009).

Three poems at Rigorous

The good folks at Rigorous have seen fit to publish three more of my poems, all ekphrastic in nature:

  1. “essay for history B”

    [inspired by thanks Langston Hughes’ “Theme for English B”]

  2. “an open letter to an american institution”

    [inspired by Ted Kooser’s “Fort Robinson”]

    and

  3. [Say the blues were apocalyptic— Black]

    [a sonnet inspired by James Cone’s The Cross and the Lynching Tree]

[Bittersweet news] 2019 Orison Chapbook Prize Finalist (but not a winner)

I received the following notification today:

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Dear Matthew Henry,


I'm writing to let you know that "many strange apparitions" was selected as a finalist in The 2019 Orison Chapbook Prize. Congratulations!

While your manuscript was not selected as the winner, you should feel proud of being named a finalist out of a pool of over 325 manuscripts! Choosing a winner was truly difficult.

We'll announce the winner and finalists on our website and on social media shortly.

Thank you for sending such fine work, and best wishes for your writing.

Always the bridesmaid…

Many Strange Apparitions is one iteration of a book of sonnets I’ve been working on for quite some time, and whose individual pieces have been accepted at publications such as Amethyst Review, The Other Journal, Rhino, Rock and Sling, 3Elements Literary Review, Spiritus, and The Windhover among others.

Until they find publication as a collection, I’ll take this honor as a push in the right direction.