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Dopplegangbanger by Cortney Lamar Charleston Book Cover

The Polarities of a Black Boy: a review of Cortney Lamar Charleston’s Dopplegangbanger

According to his website, Cortney Lamar Charleston is a poet whose words “paint themselves against the backgrounds of past and present.” Identity, he says, is, “functionally, a transition zone” between “race, masculinity, class, family, and faith.” In his latest collection, Dopplegangbanger, there is a conflict of the soul.  The opening poem, “The Unauthorized Biography of […]

The Polarities of a Black Boy: a review of Cortney Lamar Charleston’s Dopplegangbanger Read More »

According to his website, Cortney Lamar Charleston is a poet whose words “paint themselves against the backgrounds of past and present.” Identity, he says, is, “functionally, a transition zone” between “race, masculinity, class, family, and faith.” In his latest collection, Dopplegangbanger, there is a conflict of the soul.  The opening poem, “The Unauthorized Biography of

Colorful Image from Canva

Gametes

My cousin floats on her back a few feet away.
She’s the most beautiful thing—

Five years older & mean,
she used to kick me in my sleep.

We lie facedown on the concrete dock
as a hawk circles us.

Gametes Read More »

My cousin floats on her back a few feet away.
She’s the most beautiful thing—

Five years older & mean,
she used to kick me in my sleep.

We lie facedown on the concrete dock
as a hawk circles us.

Stock Image of Teddybear with Gavel

Skin

We were wrong. It is important to acknowledge that. Wrong, that is, to think, imperiously, that he needed fixing or saving. That is the inherent logic, though, of the multiracial adoptive family, where salvage and repair discourses abound.

Skin Read More »

We were wrong. It is important to acknowledge that. Wrong, that is, to think, imperiously, that he needed fixing or saving. That is the inherent logic, though, of the multiracial adoptive family, where salvage and repair discourses abound.

Un-American by Hafizah Geter Cover Photo

Proud to be Un-American

Reading her book was akin to stumbling upon a coworker’s diary (or, more realistically, an outspoken social media profile), an exercise I found simultaneously fascinating and mildly discomfiting.

Proud to be Un-American Read More »

Reading her book was akin to stumbling upon a coworker’s diary (or, more realistically, an outspoken social media profile), an exercise I found simultaneously fascinating and mildly discomfiting.

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