Doppelgangbanger

by Cortney Lamar Charleston

Overview

In his anticipated second poetry collection, Doppelgangbanger, Cortney Lamar Charleston examines the performance of Black masculinity in the U.S., and its relationship to family, love and community.

With the wit and musicality fitting of a 90s baby raised during the Golden age of hip-hop, Cortney Lamar Charleston grapples with the landscapes of Chicago’s South Side and surrounding suburbs, and the tensions that impact a Black boy’s struggle through self-destructive definitions of manhood. While the language in these poems is playful, Charleston’s vulnerability invites readers to intimately witness the speaker’s journey from adopted persona to an authentic self that defies traditional molds.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781642592658
Publisher:	Haymarket Books
Publication date:	02/09/2021
Series:	BreakBeat Poets Series
Pages:	100
Sales rank:	627,448
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.70(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Cortney Lamar Charleston is a Cave Canem fellow from the Chicago suburbs. His debut collection, Telepathologies, won the 2016 Saturnalia Books Poetry Prize, selected by D.A. Powell. He began writing and performing poetry as a member of The Excelano Project when he was an undergraduate studying economics and urban studies at the University of Pennsylvania. His poetry is a marriage between art and activism, and a call for a more involved and empathetic understanding of the diversity of the human experience. In 2017, Charleston was a recipient of the Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation. He currently serves as poetry editor at The Rumpus.

Table of Contents

The Unauthorized Autobiography of Jung Thug 1

I.

Hip-Hop Introspective 4

A Brief History of Poetry 6

Etymology of Hoochie Mama 7

The Attitude Era 8

Grand Theft Auto III (2001) 9

A Brief History of Violence 10

Self-Portrait as a Chicken Dinner 11

Still Life with the Dropout Bear Sitting in the Stands 13

Keep Your Mouth Shut 15

Still Life with Kendrick Lamar's Mama's Van 16

Family and Consumer Sciences 17

Animal Phat Farm 19

Etymology of Gangsta 20

Still Life with Crooked Painting and Bullet Holes in Grayscale 21

(Sub)Urban Dictionary 22

Dissplacement 24

Elegy for a False Sense of Security 25

Newton's Third Law / Negritude's First Law 26

II.

Genesis 10:11 28

Apologia with a Pregnancy Test and Weeping Jesus 29

The Ballad of Addy Walker: An African-American Girl Story 30

Still Life with Torso of Cornrowed Neo-Soul Sanger 31

Hip-Hop Introspective 32

Giving Dap 33

Waves 34

Louis Vuitton Timberlands 36

"I Like My Women Like I Like My Cars," 37

Doppelgangbanger 38

Psalm for P. 39

A Can of Murray's Pomade, 1990-Present 40

Still Life with Woman and Balloons in Noir 41

Gangsters, Disciples 42

Still Life with the Color Orange 43

Grand Street 45

The Love Song of Percy Sledgehammer 46

Jesus Piece 47

A Character Solemnly Torn 48

III.

Self-Portrait as a Shadow 50

Hip-Hop Introspective 51

Lesson for Cortney 53

Self-Portrait as a Tea Bag 54

"When I Grow Up, I Want to Be a Martyr" 56

Sonic & Knuckles (1994) 57

Still Life with Young Black Woman's Face Etched into a School Desk 59

Devotion ("I Am on the Battlefield for My Lord") 61

Still Life with Light-Skinned Rapper Wearing Newsboy Cap 63

Moving Day (New Kids in the Neighborhood) 65

White History Month 67

Still Life with Black Boy's Face Overlaying Project Buildings 69

Triggernometry 70

Jumpman: A Ghazal with Pivots 72

Jim Opus [jim oh-puh s] 73

Still Life with Skateboarding Rapper Orbited by Nerd Paraphernalia 74

No Weapon Formed Against Me Shall Prosper 75

Thugonomics 76

Ode to FAFSA 78

On Recidivism 79

Ode to the Paycheck 80

"I Ain't Mean to Scare You, Lil' Nigga," 81

Acknowledgments 83

Editorial Reviews

★ 02/15/2021

The pensive and often playful second book from Charleston (Telepathologies) considers the lasting impact of racism, religion, and masculinity on Black boyhood. These poems are filled with memorable stories and different iterations of the self. Charleston excels at showcasing the fraught representational power of 1990s and early 2000s media, but also in his observations about perception, such as when he writes that “the camera has blurred my edges in the suggestion of motion,” or observes, “I’m beside myself almost always: A side, B side.” Throughout, the threats of racism and police violence are evident, but the Black community is never reduced to being framed as the object of such actions. The collection is full of musicality and rich turns of phrase: “I’m new to his neighborhood. He is equally/ new to mine—the two, divided by a dotted line/ like always, by colors and the casual violence/ that implies.” Charleston incisively brings an entire milieu to life in these urgent, vulnerable, and accessible poems. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly

With stunning knowledge and sharp vulnerability, Cortney Lamar Charleston has rendered a classical epic of love, war, and self-discovery, in the tradition of Milton, Homer, and Virgil if they were Bone Thugs-n-Harmony.

—Morgan Parker, author of Magical Negro

“Cortney Lamar Charleston burns his signature into these stanzas. With an unrelenting intimacy, he dares us into a narrative we think we know—Black boy vs. the scheming wiles of the city vs. the rest of his life—then backhand slaps us toward a singular experience marked by choices that can only guide the life of one man.”

—Patricia Smith, author of Incendiary Art

“Cortney Lamar Charleston is one of our most necessary observers of Black boyhood in all its beauty and difficulty. These poems sing to us of us.”

—Nate Marshall, author of Finna

From the Publisher