It's Important I Remember: Poems

An incantation of strength and solace for persisting in twenty-first-century America “History doesn’t repeat, it rhymes.” In his sweeping third collection, Charleston brings a poet’s ear for echo and rhythm to bear on American history and life after 2016. For Charleston, these rhymes cut two ways: the long tradition of American racism and fascism, and the steady pulse of Black persistence. The collection’s titular invocation frames each poem, at times an oratory to rally a crowd, in other moments a private prayer whispered as the speaker gathers himself to face another day. Charleston insists that should we cede memory of our national biography—whether to repression or indifference—we will witness the country’s dissolution into something unrecognizable to most, yet all too familiar to its most marginalized people. But with each reiteration and riff, he also invokes a tenuous hope—that if we summon an American history of Black resistance, we might still make a more perfect union.

Table of Contents:
It’s Important I Remember— this country is sick …I Can Never Wash My Hands Enough— …There Are Several Ways to Kill Houseplants— …Survival Is a Matter of Luck— …Darkness and Blackness Aren’t Perfect Synonyms— …White Blood Cells Fight Disease Within the Body— …Being Alone and Being Lonely Aren’t the Same Thing— …Things Are Getting Back to Normal Around Here— under new management …There Was No Poet at Donald Trump’s Inauguration— …a Tank Has Never Stopped the Lyric— …People Who Search for Me on Google Also Search for Terrance Hayes— …Even Donald Trump Didn’t Believe He’d Win the Election— made in America …Dropping a Bomb on an Occupied Row House Is Unconscionable— …White Men Killed Martin Luther King Jr.— …Nelson Mandela Wasn’t Non-Violent— …I’m Not Built for This Fight— …Fascism Didn’t Come to America, It Was Already Here— …Good Artists Copy— …There Is No Universally Recognized Definition— …The Enemy of My Enemy Is Someone I Don’t Know Very Well— pledges of allegiance …Harry S. Truman Was Presented with Four Options— …the United States Hasn’t Issued a Declaration of War Since World War II— …They Hate Us for Our Freedom— …America Is Full of Shit— …the Enemy Is Always Within— …Exile Doesn’t Promise Extrication— …Palestinians Know Our Police Better Than We Do— property’s rights …History Is All a Big Misunderstanding— …Thomas Jefferson Was a Rapist— …Enslaved People Married Here— …Abraham Lincoln Always Measured Before He Cut— …the Final Scene in Django Unchained Is the Destruction of Candyland— …John Brown Was the First Person Executed for Treason in U.S. History— justice delayed is justice denied …Toni Morrison Dubbed Bill Clinton the First Black President— …Orange Is the New Black— …Journalism Is the First Draft of History— …Nina Simone Wrote “Mississippi Goddam” in Less Than One Hour— …the Moral Arc of the Universe Bends— …America Exists by a Kind of Grace— the opposite of love …a Current Event Is a Current— …History Doesn’t Repeat, It Rhymes— …My Employer Cares About My Safety and Well-Being— …We’re Not Bearing Witness, We’re Watching— …in Order for White People to Study My Life They Must First Study My Body— …There’s a Difference Between a Human Being and a Person— …Jesus Wept— …They Don’t Have the Tools to Critique Me— …All I Have to Do Is Stay Black and Die— insure domestic tranquility …the Right to Keep and Bear Arms Is the Second Amendment— …the Only Thing We Have to Fear Is Fear Itself— …It Costs Extra to Add Cheese on a Whopper— …the Feeling of an Eye on Me Burns— …the Root of the Problem Is the Root— …George Zimmerman Isn’t White— …Whiteness Is Only an Orientation— inevitability …Lyndon B. Johnson Said, “We Have Lost the South for a Generation”— …Politics Is a Contact Sport— …People Voted for Donald Trump Because of Economic Anxiety— sick and tired of being sick and tired …There’s a March Tomorrow— …Sojourner Truth Hadn’t Suffered Enough— …Fannie Lou Hamer Kept the Phone Off the Hook— …South Carolina Seceded First— …Rosa Parks Was the Perfect Candidate— …Ella Baker Was Married to the Movement— my sister’s keeper …Halle Berry Is the Only Black Woman to Win an Academy Award for Best Actress— …Frederick Douglass Learned How to Read— …Even BeyoncÉ Got Cheated On— …I Believed I Could Fly— …Love Presumes Protection— …Harriet Tubman Had a Pistol on Her at All Times— sometimes it be your own peoples …Black Men Killed Malcolm X— …Tupac Shakur Was 25 When He Was Murdered— …Jay-Z Arrived on the Day Fred Hampton Died— …Twista Can Make You a Celebrity Overnight— …Kanye West Doesn’t Care About Black People— …the Obamas’ First Date Was Seeing Do the Right Thing— …I’m Avoiding the Footage— …Parting Is Such Sweet Sorrow— …One Black Justice Replaced Another— a thing with feathers …a Lack of Imagination Kills— …There’s Always Hope— …God Intervenes— to be determined …the Majority of Americans Agree the Country Is on the Wrong Track— …Donald Trump’s Supporters Attacking the Capitol Was Unprecedented, Not Unpredictable— Important Dates Important Notes Acknowledgments

About the Author :
Cortney Lamar Charleston is a Pushcart Prize–winning poet and the author of Telepathologies and Doppelgangbanger. He has been awarded a Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation as well as fellowships from Cave Canem and the New Jersey State Council on the Arts.

Review :
“This collection has moved me so completely, kept me rapt in wonder at its incisive craft and heady treatises-in-verse. While It’s Important I Remember rails, seethes, and spews its rage in equal doses, it also soothes, goads, and, finally, exhorts.” —L. Lamar Wilson, author of Sacrilegion “This is more than a collection of poetry; these poems are a portal into Cortney Lamar Charleston’s brilliant mind. They challenge orthodoxy, they mine the archives, they expand our imaginations. It’s Important I Remember is magnificent.” —Clint Smith, author of Above Ground: Poems