It’s Important I Remember That History Is All a Big Misunderstanding—

Cortney Lamar Charleston is the author of three full-length poetry collections and one chapbook: Telepathologies (Saturnalia Books, 2017), selected by D. A. Powell for the Saturnalia Books Poetry Prize; Doppelgangbanger (Haymarket Books, 2021), named a best book of the year by the New York Public Library and The Boston Globe; It’s Important I Remember (Curbstone Books/Northwestern University Press, 2026); and A Republic, If (Beloit Poetry Journal, 2027), winner of the 2026 Chad Walsh Chapbook Prize. Recipient of a Pushcart Prize, he has also been awarded a Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation and fellowships from Cave Canem and the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. His poems have appeared in Poetry, The Nation, AGNI, The Atlantic, The American Poetry Review, The Kenyon Review, and elsewhere. Charleston serves on the Haymarket Books Poetry Advisory Board. (updated 9/2026)