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Fevers of the Mind Poetry Showcase

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As a few people are aware, one of the projects I'm currently working (yes, I said “one of…"“) is a collection of ekphrastic poems: I’m expanding Dust & Ashes into a full-length collection.

To that end, I've spent a good part of the summer visiting a bunch of art museums in three different states (so far) to balance the literary art responses with some visual art. Some fruits of that labor were published today in Fevers of the Mind. Here is the link to the poems:

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MEH Updates: my new newsletter through Substack

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For about a year people have been asking me about a newsletter. I keep saying, “yeah, I’ll get around to something.” Now I finally have.

MEH Updates will be a (mostly) monthly newsletter about recent and upcoming events, publications, generally musings, and the like.

Could you access the same information by constantly checking in and refreshing my website multiple times a month? Of course. But I’ve been told that a newsletter sent directly to one’s inbox is an easier system for people.

You can subscribe by entering your email in the form.

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Solstice Literary Magazine Stephen Dunn Poetry Prize winner!

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Well I can finally announce that my poem “the Banjo Player explains” was chosen by A Van Jordan as the Solstice Literary Magazine Stephen Dunn Poetry Prize winner!

The poem is an ekphrastic narrative based on Henry Ossawa Tanner’s painting The Banjo Lesson: the painting which was the cover art for my first collection, Teaching While Black.


Poetry Editor Note

It’s a joy to present the selections for the 2023 Stephen Dunn Prize for poetry. The winning poem is “the Banjo Player Explains,” by Matthew E. Henry, selected by our poetry judge for this issue, A. Van Jordan. He writes:

In one of the most assured ekphrastic poems I’ve read in some time, ‘the Banjo Player Explains,’ grants a wish I’ve had since I first saw this Tanner painting: ‘I wish I could hear this lesson played out.’ The poem goes beyond the canvas and the framing of the two figures by “striking a balance between two worlds,” indeed. There’s also the perspective of experiential knowledge of the boy as man, an old man, looking back on a moment he will never forget, yet not initially knowing the significance of it in the moment. There’s great wisdom and a life lesson here.

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Origin Stories: on the beginnings of The Third Renunciation

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After a reading in Minneapolis today, someone opened a copy of The Third Renunciation and asked about the dedication, which reads:

I was asked, “who was Chase to you?”

One of the first theological sonnets I wrote came out of processing his death. The sonnet, every draft, was terrible. Eventually, a decade later, I realized it was because some stories can't be told in 14 lines.

“Out of My Hands” was published by Zone 3 and is that story, and also is the beginnings of The Third Renunciation.

You can read it here.

Review of The Third Renunciation at The Poetry Question

The Third Renunciation by Matthew E. Henry is a collection of sonnets that presents the theological in a way in which the reader is made to ruminate on their own faith and understanding of the divine, the religious and the unknown. Centered on the exploration of evil, pain and the perceptions that we all hold that demarcate what these conceptions are personally. Henry’s sonnets make sustained use of metaphor both individually and between themselves where an overarching extended metaphor can be seen that begs the reader to ask themselves; “What truth do you hold and is it consistent?”

Perhaps one notion that stays with me the most upon reflecting on Henry’s latest collection is the idea that the divine has lasted throughout human existence. However, it may be that our conception of divinity must truly change for salvation to be found. On Earth or otherwise. …

"the patron saint of suicide" in Cola Literary Review

I am proud that my poem “the patron saint of suicide” has been published in Cola Literary Review. You can purcahse a copy here.

This poem is based on the vastly superior poem “Googling the Patron Saint of Suicides” by the amazing Joan Kwon Glass and has a place in my forthcoming chapbook said the Frog to the scorpion from Harbor Editions.

Type Casting in ASP Bulletin

“That’s some white people shit.”

“What?”

“Were all of the people who thought you were gay white?”

“It’s not that they thought I was gay exactly…”

“Not straight. Whatever. Were all of them white?”

“No.” I mentally scroll through faces and races. “Yes?”

“See? You don’t fit their Black-Man stereotype, other than dating white women…”

“Hey…”

“Whatever nigga: you do you. I’m just saying you don’t fit their image of what a Black man is ‘supposed’ to be. You’re not some overly masculine thug, sitting on a stoop, rocking a durag and sipping a 40. A sensitive and educated Black man, who works with kids seems femme to them. So, they assume you’re not straight.”

“No, V. That can’t be it.”

It was.

CLICK BELOW TO READ THE REST OF THE STORY

Two Poems in Cultural Daily

Thanks to Bunkong Tuon for supporting my work with his students at Union College ) and for turning me on to Cultural Daily, which just published two of my poems.

Click to Read “when asked to read a poem for the Black History Month assembly”—which was actually written for a Black History Month assembly— and “thank you, systemic racism”

 

Also check out “an open letter to the white boy from queens who sang the n-word in a song” by Denesha Lafontant, also at Cultural Daily, which pays homage to my poems. #flattered

"Inscrutable": creative nonfiction in Redivider

I am honored that “Inscrutable,” a story I wrote for/about my AAPI students in response to the Atlanta Spa Shootings, was published by Redivider as their inagural Cultural Critique piece.
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Redivider 20.1 | Cover art — Tea Queen by Aaron Norfolk

He knows the myth, but he is the model minority. The all-around A-student: attentive, astute, Asian. He’s good at math and science, but also garners excellent grades and respect in my sophomore honors English class. He’s soft spoken, but thoughtful. So as the others call out, he raises his hand and waits patiently. When I acknowledge that he will be next, he lowers it back to his desk, places the other over a delicate wrist. When he does speak, on an average Wednesday, I will swear in front of a class for the first time in twenty years of teaching.