New book & First Reading! [Rescheduled]
I’ll be putting out a normal February newsletter at some point soon, but here are two time sensitive announcements:
Tuesday, February 13 is the release date of my new full-length collection said the Frog to the scorpion, published by Harbor Editions!
About the collection:
From conversations in public school classrooms and faculty meetings, to arguments in restaurants and folding tents, said the Frog to the scorpion blurs the lines between pedagogy and prejudice, romance and anti-racism. In poems referencing a ubiquitous “She,” Matthew E Henry’s latest collection explores the options left a Black teacher in a white system when love is met with empty promises and toxic amnesia. Henry’s frog survives the initial encounter and slowly, painfully, “his slick, perforated back” begins to understand: a scorpion will always be exactly who She is—someone who can’t tell Asians students apart, who equates accountability with gaslighting, who thinks Goldilocks was the hero of the story, who makes wishes on the rubbed heads of magic negroes She’s dated. said the Frog to the scorpion attempts to decode Her mind, and the fallout of the relationship, while asking what’s the difference between a breakup and resignation letter.
This has been rescheduled, tentatively, for March 26th
On that same date, I will be reading with Sarah Kersey and Quintin Collins at the Newton Free Library at 7pm. This will be my first time reading selections from said the Frog to the scorpion (so it might get wild)! There is also an open mic.
