Cortney Lamar Charleston

I need more folks to consciously accept that aiding and abetting genocide with our money and arms made safeguarding democracy exceedingly more difficult than it already is.

You know, this makes me realize I can’t recall the last time I heard any of these so-called leaders refer to themselves as “public servants”

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

Hope is on the menu in New York City

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

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.

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!

Magnitude and Bond that which is betwixt us of the lampooned lips and noses

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...

Barely lol

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”

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

On a rocket made of tomato soup cans.

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.

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...

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.

Whomever is advising the Democrats is on the other team.

That headline is doing nasty work. Yeesh.

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.

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

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

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:

Thanks for including me alongside these brilliant poets & friends!

Thinking about Brother Malcolm today.

More than any other quality, what defines broad swaths of my fellow Americans is not apathy, but dishonesty: intellectual dishonesty; emotional dishonesty; spiritual dishonesty. Dishonesty about what we’ve done, about what we’re doing, about what we’re going to do as a people.

As they should be. Even if they’ve enabled much of this for their own benefit, once the point comes you’ve given a man absolute power, you’ve placed your precious little life in his hands and even opulent wealth may not protect you at that point.