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Cortney Lamar Charleston

@bardsbesidebars.bsky.social

1.9K followers 440 following 160 posts

Poet & Author • TELEPATHOLOGIES (Saturnalia Books, 2017); • DOPPELGANGBANGER (Haymarket Books, 2021); • IT'S IMPORTANT I REMEMBER (Northwestern Univ. Press, 2026) https://www.cortneylamarcharleston.com/important-links

www.cortneylamarcharleston.com

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Cortney Lamar Charleston @bardsbesidebars.bsky.social · Apr 2

Poets! For the first time ever, I'm available for consultations on your full-length and chapbook manuscripts, as well as assorted packets. You can find details around services and pricing at the link in my bio. I look forward to working with you and delighting in your poems!

Cortney Lamar Charleston @bardsbesidebars.bsky.social · 3d

Tomorrow night at The New School in NYC. Come join us!

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Cortney Lamar Charleston @bardsbesidebars.bsky.social · 29d

Oh wow, a powerful man being held to account for breaking the law. Wild concept. Imagine we adopted that here in this country.

Yashar Ali 🐘 @yasharali.bsky.social · 29d

BREAKING

Jair Bolsonaro, the former President of Brazil, has been sentenced to 27 years and three months in prison.

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Cortney Lamar Charleston @bardsbesidebars.bsky.social · Sep 1

I lack trust and confidence in anyone who says “fascism” here and now in the US, but couldn’t say “genocide” then and there about Gaza, or can’t say it now.

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Cortney Lamar Charleston @bardsbesidebars.bsky.social · Aug 11

If you want to kill the truth, you kill the truth tellers. That’s what they’ve been doing, are doing, will do. With our weapons and approval.

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Reposted by Cortney Lamar Charleston

Prisonculture @prisonculture.bsky.social · Jul 11

This is correct and it's why public opinion doesn't actually do anything on its own. It has to be mobilized. You have to DO politics.

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · Jul 11

My sense of things has always been that most people do not have strong, deeply felt opinions on a lot of policy issues, and so their opinions can change fairly quickly depending on what’s in the news.

Silvered Mane @silvered-mane.bsky.social · Jul 11

Why do people's opinions on a single issue change with the direction of the wind?

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Cortney Lamar Charleston @bardsbesidebars.bsky.social · Jul 3

You don’t get spared just because you don’t pay attention to it. In fact, inattention is how you guarantee it.

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Cortney Lamar Charleston @bardsbesidebars.bsky.social · Jun 25

Hope is on the menu in New York City

Cortney Lamar Charleston @bardsbesidebars.bsky.social · May 7

My sincere gratitude goes to Tylonn J. Sawyer for allowing use of this gorgeous, evocative artwork!

Cortney Lamar Charleston @bardsbesidebars.bsky.social · May 7

I'm elated to share the cover for my next poetry collection, It's Important I Remember, due out 2/15/2026 from Northwestern University Press and now available to pre-order. I pray that these words move you; may they be part of a movement toward one another and away from tyranny.

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Cortney Lamar Charleston @bardsbesidebars.bsky.social · Apr 2

Cortney Lamar Charleston @bardsbesidebars.bsky.social · Apr 1

I'm kicking off National Poetry Month at the Academy of American Poets' Poem-A-Day series! You can read my new poem, "Magnitude and Bond," at the link below. Special thanks goes to Willie Perdomo for making space for me and these words this month.
poets.org/poem/magnitu...

Magnitude and Bond

that which is betwixt us of the lampooned lips and noses

poets.org

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Cortney Lamar Charleston @bardsbesidebars.bsky.social · Mar 21

Barely lol

Saeed Jones @theferocity.bsky.social · Mar 20

How are y’all handling your anger?

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Cortney Lamar Charleston @bardsbesidebars.bsky.social · Mar 13

Poetry is what you find
in the dirt in the corner,

overhear on the bus, God
in the details, the only way

to get from here to there.

—Elizabeth Alexander, “Ars Poetica #100: I Believe”

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Cortney Lamar Charleston @bardsbesidebars.bsky.social · Mar 10

"Let's drive everyone to the point of starvation, buy up everything, then rent it out at astronomical prices. Profit. Profit. Profit."

Cortney Lamar Charleston @bardsbesidebars.bsky.social · Mar 10

On a rocket made of tomato soup cans.

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Cortney Lamar Charleston @bardsbesidebars.bsky.social · Mar 10

Critiques of capitalism aside for a moment, we should ask why a man of such demonstrable greed is willing to lead a "transition" where the equities markets are driven into the ground and prices on working people are shot to the moon. None of the possible answers are good news.

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Reposted by Cortney Lamar Charleston

John Burn-Murdoch @jburnmurdoch.ft.com · Mar 7

NEW: The actions of Trump and Vance in recent weeks highlight something under-appreciated.

The American right is now ideologically closer to countries like Russia, Turkey and in some senses China, than to the rest of the west (even the conservative west).

My column: www.ft.com/content/3046...

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Cortney Lamar Charleston @bardsbesidebars.bsky.social · Mar 6

I suspect it's exactly what's happening. The volatility is opportune for a trader who knows what is coming and when. Meanwhile, individual retirement accounts and other retirement funds invested on the market will keep getting hammered as threats against Social Security loom. Fun times.

Cortney Lamar Charleston @bardsbesidebars.bsky.social · Mar 6

Whomever is advising the Democrats is on the other team.

Roxane Gay @roxanegay.bsky.social · Mar 6

Whomever is advising the Democrats right now is criminally bad at their job. The notion that they can meme their way out of fascism is truly incredible.

Cortney Lamar Charleston @bardsbesidebars.bsky.social · Mar 4

That headline is doing nasty work. Yeesh.

Cortney Lamar Charleston @bardsbesidebars.bsky.social · Mar 4

Stripping away your healthcare. Going to gut Social Security. Destroying the value of your retirement accounts. And you're clapping for it like a seal because you hate people even more than you love yourself. Couldn't be me.

Cortney Lamar Charleston @bardsbesidebars.bsky.social · Mar 2

John Cena turned heel. We’re in uncharted waters as a people.

Reposted by Cortney Lamar Charleston

Celeste Ng @pronounced-ing.bsky.social · Feb 25

In occupied France, people would drop their used matches folded into a V, as a secret sign of resistance. People who opposed the Nazis would see them, knew they weren't alone, & felt emboldened to take action.

Some modern day equivalents here--small but powerful actions you can absolutely do:

Thirty lonely but beautiful actions you can take right now which probably won't magically catalyze a mass movement against Trump but that are still wildly important

Why? Because others will see you do them, and it will make it easier for them to take their own (slightly less lonely but equally beautiful) action by your side

thewhitepages.net

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Cortney Lamar Charleston @bardsbesidebars.bsky.social · Feb 25

Thanks for including me alongside these brilliant poets & friends!

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