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Matthew Henriksen is the featured writer for October’s monthly Ozark Poets and Writers Collective reading at Nightbird Books Tuesday, Oct. 25.
Don’t blame him for being a bit dour. Writer Matthew Henriksen deals with some pretty heavy stuff, and if he has to “go there,” that’s just the way it is.
Of his recent work, Henriksen had this to say: “I’m trying to write about joy and it’s not working. It’s pretty dark.”
Henriksen is the featured reader Tuesday, Oct. 25, at the monthly event by the Ozark Poets and Writers Collective. Hosted at Nightbird Books, the reading begins at 7 p.m. sharp and is free to the public. An open mic will take place before and after Henriksen is featured.
Henriksen will read from two of his published books and will also perform a new work, All the Fights We Never Had, that’s never been recited in front of an audience.
These days, his writing is informed, at least in part, by his work with the Northwest Arkansas Prison Story Project, a program through which Henriksen has helped death row inmates tell their profound stories.
“They remind me of why I write,” he said. “It gives me something to grab so I can pull myself up.”
Henriksen grew up in Wisconsin, where he attended Lakeland College and received a B.A. in Writing before receiving an MFA in Poetry at the University of Arkansas. He is the author of two books of poetry, The Absence of Knowing and Ordinary Sun, both available from Black Ocean.
His poems and essays have appeared in the New York Times, The Rumpus, Fence, The Academy of American Poets’ Poem-A-Day, the Brooklyn Rail, the Arkansas Times, and elsewhere, including three anthologies: The Volta Book of Poets, Hick Poetics, and Poem-a-Day: 365 Poems for Every Occasion.
He edited “Another Part of the Flood: Poems, Stories, and Correspondence of Frank Stanford,” a 64 page feature for Fulcrum Annual, and hosted the Frank Stanford Literary Festival in Fayetteville in 2008.
He has co-edited the online poetry journal Typo for over a decade and spent much of the oughts in Brooklyn, N. Y., hosting the Burning Chair Readings and publishing Cannibal Books, a handmade book arts poetry press. He currently works as the Building and Communications Coordinator at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church and volunteers as a Teaching Poet and President of the Board of Directors for the Northwest Arkansas Prison Story Project.
His main project is raising his precocious and gorgeous seven-year-old daughter, Adele Cecilia.
