10 Questions for Matthew E. Henry
- By Marissa Perez
the pair of gold teeth you found as a child, hidden
at the bottom of your mother’s jewelry box,
were not from your father’s dental school failure,
artificials he filed from ferric molds.
—from "an open letter to the woman sharing her funny story in this writing workshop", Volume 62, Issue 2 (Spring 2021)
Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.
I wrote a persona poem wherein the speaker is an old, Black, southern grandmother on trial for murdering a white man. On the witness stand, and through a you-know-she-taught-Sunday-school-to-Adam-and-Eve-in-Eden voice, she explains her justification for the crime. It was one of my first published pieces, but I did not like it. I was discovering my writing voice, and was still stuck in that 20-something, new to poetry, obsessed with e. e. cummings, and everything is a mess, phase of my writing. A good friend of mine sat me down and explained why the poem was worthy of attention and publication. She made me see things in it that I hadn’t seen myself, and I grew to love the poem. Over 20 years later (and while answering this question), it dawned on me that this poem was the first whispers of my current writing voice. So I recently re-thanked that friend for her words. There were tears.
What writer(s) or works have influenced the way you write now?
I mean, everything I read influences me, even if it’s just through anger inducing jealousy. But the names/works that come to mind first are Gwendolyn Brooks & Lucille Clifton. Practical Gods by Carl Dennis, as well as Questions for Ecclesiastes and Unholy Sonnets by Mark Jarman definitely came along at important points in my poetic development. Stephen Dunn’s “Mon Semblable” definitely deserves a mention, even though one of my high school students recently pointed out that I have been misinterpreting one of my favorite lines/images, and I’m still wrestling with the implications.
What other professions have you worked in?
Other than a stint working in a seamstress shop, I’ve always worked in education: pre-k through grad school. Usually something in the humanities (e.g. English/language arts, education curriculum and pedagogy, ethics and philosophy, sociology, etc.), but I’ve also been an instructor of archery and riflery at summer camps, because someone thought it was a good idea for me to put weapons in the hands of impressionable youth.
What inspired you to write this piece?
Like a large number of my poems, this one is based on true events. I was in a workshop at a local writing conference whose focus was mining one’s personal history for creative writing gems. At one point we were given a prompt about our younger selves finding objects in our childhood homes. During the share-out session, an older woman began to cheerfully explain how she found the box of teeth and gold crowns poorly hidden in her father’s things, as well as the rationale she was given for this its existence by her family. Maybe I’m morbid, but I paid enough attention during my history classes to be suspicious of the tale she retold. Looking around the room, I locked eyes with strangers who, like me, clearly saw something more sinister behind the weak and implausible yarn she was spinning. So I abandoned the poem I was writing about my own childhood discoveries, and started writing this poem (P.S. if you’re the woman in question: uhm, sorry.)
Is there any specific music that aids you through the writing or editing process?
I try to shut out as many distractions as possible when writing, which includes music. This is impossible when writing in some public locations where music/muzak is everywhere (i.e. coffee shops, school, waiting in line at the post office). However, there are times when I am trying to get into a certain emotional/mental state to write or revise a piece, and will put on albums that I think will get me there. The album Mos Def & Talib Kweli Are Black Star, Classic Yo-Yo (Yo-Yo Ma), and August and Everything After (Counting Crows) are examples. The complete discography of Stevie Wonder lives rent free in my head.
Do you have any rituals or traditions that you do in order to write?
99% of the time, my first draft of any writing is with paper and pen. In a moment of desperation, I will type ideas into the notes app on my phone, but a first draft feels very wrong if I am not holding a pen in my hand. Since elementary school, I’ve carried a pen attached to my watchband. Long sleeve shirt, short sleeve shirt, tuxedo, shirtless: if I am wearing a watch, I have a pen clipped to the outside of my watchband. Everyone thinks this is weird until they ask, “does anyone have a pen?”
Who typically gets the first read of your work?
These days I am pretty solitary in terms of my writing, so the editor of the journal I’m submitting to might be the first person to see my work. Sometimes it’s a student, friend, or coworker who is also in the midst of a writing project.
If you could work in another art form what would it be?
I have imposter syndrome as a musician (though I’ve been playing various instruments since I was four), but I would love to dabble in the visual arts. A painter or a photographer, attempting to capture the scenes, and communicate messages with images instead of words.
What are you working on currently?
My first full-length collection—the Colored page—is forthcoming from Sundress Publications in 2022. It’s a semi-autobiographical journey through the life of a Black kid turned Black teacher in predominately white educational, professional, and writing circles. Currently, I’m attempting to tinker with that without ruining it. I am also composing and compiling a manuscript sonnets that re-examine and rebuke a host of theological and philosophical propositions, mostly using images which make my parents very uncomfortable. A press has expressed interest in the collection, so we’ll see what happens. In addition, I’m still writing individual poems not associated with any specific collection, as well as continuing to pretend that I can hang with prose writers. I have a couple of creative nonfiction pieces and flash fiction pieces in the works.
What are you reading right now?
One of the joys of ADHD is that I’m always (actively) reading multiple books at the same time. Right now my nightstand is holding Augustina Bazterrica’s Tender is the Flesh, Carla Sofia Ferreira’s Ironbound Fados, Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza’s But She Said: Feminist Practices of Biblical Interpretation, Torrin A. Greathouse’s Wound from the Mouth of a Wound, Ibram X. Kendi’s How to be an Antiracist, The Collected Works of Audre Lorde, and Isabel Quintero’s Gabi, a Girl in Pieces.
MATTHEW E. HENRY (MEH) is the author of the chapbooks Teaching While Black (Main Street Rag, 2020) and Dust and Ashes (Californios Press, 2020). His full-length collection, the Colored page, is forthcoming from Sundress Publications. He is also the editor in chief of The Weight Journal. His recent poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Bending Genres, Frontier Poetry, New York Quarterly, Ninth Letter, Ploughshares, Shenandoah, and Solstice. MEH is an educator who received his MFA from Seattle Pacific University yet continued to spend money he didn’t have completing an MA in theology and a PhD in education. You can find him at MEHPoeting.com writing about education, race, religion, and burning oppressive systems to the ground.
