Cortney Lamar Charleston is a Pushcart Prize–winning poet and the author of Telepathologies (Saturnalia Books, 2017). He was awarded a 2017 Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation, as well as fellowships from Cave Canem, the Conversation Literary Festival, and the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. His poem “Etymology of Gangsta” can be found here. It appears in the Mar/Apr 2020 issue of the Kenyon Review.
What was your original impetus for writing “Etymology of Gangsta”?
As it were, “Etymology of Gangsta” was among the last poems I wrote while whipping my second full-length collection, Doppelgangbanger, into shape. With etymology being an inherent reference to origin, I wanted to speak to the formation of a hyper-masculine persona by reflecting back on my own odyssey into adulthood and on the struggle I had conforming to certain expectations of Black masculinity as it was often represented to me.
One of the concerns of this poem, and of the collection it is constituent to, is how the embrace of this rough and rugged costume is in part a rejection of whiteness and respectability politics that are too easily coopted to reinforce anti-Black racism and bigotry. In that way, it serves as a bit of a political manifesto; I distinctly recall during that time in my life knowing that I was actively performing (rather than being real) but I also recall my resentment toward the predominantly white social spaces I frequently found myself in and how they either attempted to flatten my individual complexity or strip me of the Blackness of which I’d always been so proud. Though I’m much more comfortable with my own chosen expression of masculinity now, nearly thirty years old, the frustration that rests in the beating heart of this poem continues to live on in me to this day. There’s still some gangsta in me that hasn’t been snuffed out quite yet, some bit of rebellion and resistance.
Do you write poems out loud, or read them aloud during revision?
The writing process, in regards to putting word to page, a line perhaps, is rather quiet for me. However, when revising a poem, going line by line, often even before the poem is a completed draft, I absolutely read the text aloud. It’s a necessary part of my process at this point, a held-over habit from my formative days doing spoken word, where I placed such focus on how things sounded to the ear, sound being a way of endearing the words to an audience that had no text in front of them. If, in my read, my tongue gets snagged on a word or phrase and can’t proceed past it with some level of silk, I’ll rework the language it until it feels right. I say feel because this is a profoundly intuitive exercise for me. I credit all the hip-hop I’ve devoured for that, as it was through the genre that I really became immersed in language in a playful and creative way and where my appetite and anticipation of musicality most directly stems from.
Can you share more about invoking Wesley Snipes in the line “Jesus was black / like dude that played Nino Brown”? And the echo of M.A.F.I.A. in “It’s been said sweet-singing Frank Sinatra ran with the Mafia”?
What’s a poem without a pop culture reference or two?
Wesley Snipes, coming up, was notable for being one of the darker skinned Black people you’d routinely see on screen. He was unmistakably Black and, because of his visibility, took on a certain symbolism even if all you heard were people making jokes about it. For me, invoking Jesus as a black person was something I wanted to do, as a rejection, again, of white cultural dominance, so Wesley Snipes was an intuitive, comfortable reach for me to do so. Playfully.
The Sinatra reference has significance here, too; it points to how Blackness is treated more synonymously with criminality while the stigma doesn’t necessarily extend to other people in quite the same way. Sure, I’m not going to ever discount or dismiss what Italian-Americans have had to face when it comes to discrimination and stereotyping, but they’ve also been able to assimilate into whiteness and thereby can duck a lot of the intimate and structural violences supposed Black criminality invites upon people like me in the past and the present. The fact that this happens, still, is illogical, as Black people have no greater potential to run afoul of law and social custom than any others all things being equal, and yet the violence we’re subjected to is widely accepted as a logical outcome due to prevailing pathology. It’s bull, quite frankly.
How has your writing changed since you started out?
When I first began writing, I was doing far too much imitation as I tried to tease out my voice on the page. I think that’s true of many when they are beginners, by the way; you try to mimic what inspires you. My earliest poems (the ones I haven’t tossed into the fire) read to me as intellectually authentic but not authentic in voice. Everything was a strain, and the poems read that way. One could tell that I was reaching for something intriguing and potentially profound but couldn’t quite get a handle on it. It wasn’t any deficiency in diction or command of English that held me back; the necessary development was all in what words were chosen and how they were arranged. That’s what needed to change, that what makes a poem soar. I had to find the confidence to embrace myself and in embracing myself I was finally able to bring the language I needed to the page, the language that was trying to claw out of me. This has made all the difference, has allowed me to be more experimental and adventurous, to feel authoritative: confidence did it all. I guess, in the end, the writing didn’t change so much as I did. I think that’s the more truthful answer.
Which non-writing-related aspect of your life most influences your writing?
Current events, I’d say. I’m very observant in a political sense. I have a lot on my mind and a lot to say and every day invites another chance to speak up and speak out. I mean, have you read what’s going on? Have you looked outside the window? It’s wild out there, as horrendous as it is beautiful. How could you not be moved towards something, writing or otherwise, witnessing it?
What is either the best or the worst piece of writing advice you’ve received or given?
Worst? Well, I wouldn’t remember, because if it was really that bad it never stuck. I made a point of it.
Best? That’s hard. I don’t know if this is my definitive answer, but I will always, for all my writing days, reflect back on Toi Derricotte’s insistence to our merry band of Cave Canem fellows that we write the hard poem, the poem that terrifies us, the poem that requires a vulnerability that even the bravest of us never become wholly comfortable with. By confronting it, not only are you writing the most necessary work but you’re practicing a kind of self-liberation. Writing has its purposes (plural), but perhaps the most noble is to be in service of self-liberation.
What project(s) are you working on now, or next?
As I mentioned a bit earlier in this conversation, I have another full-length collection due out later this year from Haymarket Books that I’m feverishly working on to get prepared for release. I’m excited about it, as I have a particular love for the poems appearing in it (“Etymology of Gangsta” included), but I’m also so incredibly anxious at the same time. I really, really hope people like it and that people feel it’s a successful project rather than a disappointment; it’s definitely entering with more eyes and expectations on it than my first collection did so (at least I feel that way), so I’m terrified of letting readers down. Just being honest.
Now, beyond the upcoming book, I somehow have two different manuscript drafts in progress. They are very different from one another stylistically but history and scrutiny of the present through the lens of the past is absolutely underpinning the writing of each manuscript. One feels like it’s baking faster than the other, but I’m taking my time with both and just enjoying writing and editing whenever I can make good time for it. I’m not sure if either will ever “be” yet, but that’s not something I’m concerned with right now. Time will tell. The work will take on the life it needs to in the end.