WRR: When did you first conceive of these poems as a single collection? Had you hoped to write a poetry book about Blackness in the context of education for a while, or did the project take shape as you found yourself writing about the unifying themes?

MEH: That’s a great question. After I wrote Teaching While Black, and had to answer questions at readings and from people who know me about those poems, I began to explore elements of that collection more deeply, specifically what it’s like being a Black student and a Black teacher in predominately white spaces. Through elementary, middle, and high school, undergrad, two masters’ programs, a doctorate, and teaching at four high schools and one college, I’ve always been “a raisin in a bowl of milk,” as one of my students phrased it.

At the time I was actively working on a manuscript of random persona poems (which went nowhere), and another of theological sonnets (which I just signed a contract for!), but began to write single poems drawn from situations at my job: conversations with my students and colleagues, microaggressions and blatantly racist events, all while observing the administrative lip-service being paid to “diversity, inclusion, and equity.” I also started comparing my past experiences to those of my students of color. Just like some of my kids, I was bused from Boston into these very suburbs (I work less than five miles away from where I went to elementary school.). At some point, I looked at the amassing work and said, “well, I guess you should write this book now.” From there it became a very intentional exercise.

Most of the poems in this collection began with a very specific memory. I began walking through my life, school by school, dredging up stories from my childhood that I had told, but never written about, as well as some that I had completely forgotten about. It all came pouring out pretty easily from there.

WRR: Each of the book’s four sections begins with lines from Langston Hughes’s “Theme for English B.” How has Hughes influenced you as a poet? Who would say were your biggest poetic influences for this book?

MEH: It’s funny. Hughes is actually not that big an influence on my writing life or style. However, “Theme for English B” was one of the first poems I encountered in high school that I saw myself in, but it wasn’t until college and beyond that I really appreciated it (It’s also worth noting that in high school I wrote short stories and thought all poems that weren’t Shakespeare’s sonnets were pointless. I was a weird kid.). “Theme for English B” holds a place in my heart because, as the Colored page shows, it was how I approached my own educators. Like in college when I had to force a discussion on our text’s use of the N-word. The white professor and entirely white class were engaged in analysis of the text, tiptoeing around the word, while awkwardly staring at me. People are often aware of how race impacts how we interact, and need to stop pretending like this is not the case.  

These days I use “Theme for English B” with my own students to talk about race and positionality. And since the vast majority of my kids are white, it hits different for them. We discuss what it feels like for them to have a teacher who doesn’t look like them standing at the front of the room. Do they worry that their words are judged differently by me than a white teacher? What biases do they think I have based on my race? How concerned are they about saying the “right” or “wrong thing” in our class compared to another? The list goes on. In some ways this poem has influenced me more as a teacher than it has as a poet.

To that end, I’d have to say my poetic influences for this book—in terms of style and content—are largely Gwendolyn Brooks, Lucille Clifton, Carl Dennis, and Miller Williams (I’m still a weird kid).

WRR: You spent many years as a student. You have an MFA, as one might expect from a poet. But then you went on to receive a Master’s in theology and a PhD in education. How did your studies in theology and education affect your poetry?

MEH: I think the education part, especially in terms of this collection, is self-evident. Beyond most of the poems taking place in educational settings, there are also insights into issues of pedagogy, curriculum choices, classroom management strategies, student health and well-being, among others that my I’ll-be-paying-off-loans-until-I-die studies have afforded me special insight. However, the biggest way that theological study has impacted this collection, and my writing in general, is contained in a quote from the beginning of Rabbi Abraham J. Heschel’s The Prophets: “The prophet seldom tells a story, but casts events. He rarely sings, but castigates. He does more than translate reality into a poetic key: he is a preacher whose purpose is not self-expression or ‘the purgation of emotions,’ but communication. His images much not shine, they must burn” (8). The last line lives rent-free in my head, especially while I’m writing, but the whole sentiment is the background.

I came across Heschel’s work in seminary while completing a dual degree in Hebrew Bible and theology and the arts at Andover Newton Theological School. And it was reading him, among others, that made me realize why I was so attracted to the prophets in the Hebrew Bible. As one of my professors opined, they were street performers, spoken word and slam poets, which is technically correct given their prophetic sign-acts and how much of their proclamations are poetry rather than prose. But more than this, they were on a mission to change the culture around them. To show people the reality they were often willfully ignorant of.

The subtext of most prophetic statements is, “for fuck’s sake, you know this is wrong!”  And then they found images that did more than turned on an interrogation room light: they lit a fire that would sear the eyes and ears of the hearer. People found (and still find) the poetics of Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Amos, as well as John the Baptist and even Jesus, offensive because they are discomforting. They cause needed pain. They scorched the foundations of temples. They’re start “good trouble.”

Now I’m not saying that I am a prophet by any stretch of the imagination. But I use them as a model for the majority of my poetry—in and outside this collection—of how to shake people out of their lethargic, complacent, and casual evil. Which, returning to education, any of my kids would say is also how I teach. While others view aspects of education through a variety of metaphors (e.g. “teacher as cheerleader”  or “classroom as garden”), I’ve always preferred the catalyst metaphors for teaching: lighting a fire, adding a chemical, shaking things up, in order to cause as reaction, to enact lasting change.

WRR: You’ve been a teacher for several years, and these poems are filled with your teaching experiences. Surely several of your students (past and present) will read the book. What do you hope they will learn from it?

MEH: I just finished my 20^th year of teaching and the cool hand of the reaper is surely reaching for my neck as we speak. Memento mori is often in my head, so I do think about what I leave behind. What my kids will take away will depend on how well I conveyed my thoughts, but also who they are in relation to the text. Where they position themselves in the various poems, positively or negatively.

Kids who stalk my website and twitter feed have read previously published versions of these poems, as well as others. Some have expressed a level of happiness feeling “seen,” that their experiences had been accurately represented, even unpleasant ones. That someone has given voice to something they’ve felt and never said aloud. In some cases, my kids have felt vindicated that an adult in the building has publicly confronted something others were willing to sweep under the rug. Others, positioned differently, have felt challenged or convicted by my poems. Have asked questions like, “have I done this?” and “is this me?” Not specifically asking about an event, but whether the sort of action (or inaction) displayed in a poem mirrors their own. Students who imagine themselves as a student, teacher, or colleague from my past, now wondering if they have acted, are currently acting, in similar ways. It’s something more than gaining knowledge about another person’s life, but being invested in the personal examination as a result of that knowledge. Both responses are among the sort I’m hoping for.

Mostly I want them to talk. To ask questions. To ponder. To break the silence which is comfortable for some and deadly for others. Theology nerd that I am, a quote from Walter Brueggemann’s Interrupting Silence is harmony to Heschel’s quote: “…silence breaking is evoked by attention to the body in pain. The body know that silence kills. When the silence is broken, the body may be restored and the body politic may be open to new possibility” (7). That’s what I hope my kids, what any reader, will take away from my words: a way to speak and heal.