Ep. 212 Doppelgangbanger by Cortney Lamar Charleston -- The Stacks Book Club (Nate Marshall)

Written By Megan Caballero

We welcome back Nate Marshall today to discuss Cortney Lamar Charleston's poetry collection Doppelgangbanger, which grapples with the tensions that impact a Black boy's struggle through self-destructive definitions of manhood. We discuss the narratives around coming of age in the suburbs and the city, and ask ourselves, is there really such a thing as an objectively good poem?

Be sure to listen to the end of today's episode to find out what our May book club pick will be!

 
 

Everything we talk about on today’s episode can be found below in the show notes and on Bookshop.org and Amazon

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TRANSCRIPT
*Due to the nature of podcast advertising, these timestamps are not 100% accurate and will vary.

Traci Thomas 0:08
Welcome to The Stacks, a podcast about books and the people who read them. I’m your host Traci Thomas and it’s the Stacks book club day. And it is the last week of National Poetry Month and I am thrilled to welcome back Nate Marshall, author of the poetry collections Wild Hundreds and Finna. Today we discussed Doppelgangbanger by Chicago poet Cortney Lamar Charleston. Doppelgangbanger is an exploration of imposed versus self-defined American Black masculinity and its intersections with family and community about how rigid form actually is and poetry. And I asked me the ever important question, what makes a poem good? Quick reminder, everything we talked about on each episode of the stacks can be found in the link to the show notes. And stay tuned till the end of this episode to find out what our May book club pick will be. All right now it’s time for my chat with Nate Marshall about Doppelgangbanger by Cortney Lamar Charleston for the Stacks book club.

Alright everybody, it is book club day. We are talking about Doppelgangbanger, we’re joined again by everyone’s new favorite poet in case you didn’t know that you loved him after those first week of the month episode. I now know you all are obsessed with him like I am. It is poet playwright, Professor, I like to do the alliteration there. It’s Nate Marshall. Welcome back.

Nate Marshall 2:28
It’s good to be back.

Traci Thomas 2:29
I’m so happy to have you back. I’m so excited to talk about this poetry collection because I weirdly had a lot of thoughts. Like I feel like I’m, like, have things to talk about which with poetry normally, I’m like, I’m not gonna have anything to talk about. But I took a lot of notes have a lot of questions. But we’ll start with you, where we always start with just sort of like, generally, what did you think of the book?

Nate Marshall 2:55
Yeah, I mean, so you know, I blurbed this book when it came out. I should also like, say, like, Courtney is someone who I’ve liked, liked a lot for years, we actually met at summer camp. Okay, like before, at least before he was alright, I think I was writing at that point. And so yeah, so he’s like, someone who I’ve had a chance to sort of follow and like, see grow over the years. And, yeah, I really loved this book. It was it’s kind of like a joy to read. And, and I think, like, in a lot of ways, one of the things that I like about it is it does the thing that certainly Courtney as a person does, but I think a lot of folks and especially a lot of like, I think like folks who have found that kind of closeness to do, which is find a way to balance like, serious or complex topics. And like also still, like get a joke off. Right? So like, constantly in the in the space of the poms. It’s, you know, we’re talking about something serious. We’re like thinking about some some real shit. But then there’s like a little pun. Or there’s, there’s even like a I mean, even the title, right? The title like is, it’s fun, right? Let’s play. It’s one of the things that sort of makes you lean in about the thing, right?

Traci Thomas 4:13
Yeah, I mean, that’s why we picked the book. I was like, We gotta read this. The title is too good to pass up. Okay, I agree with you. I liked the humor. I’ll be honest, I could not get into this collection until like the second section, okay, but I realized what my problem was, and I fixed it and then I really liked it. So I started reading the poetry collection, like one reads most things silently to myself in bed in a very low stakes way. And then I kept like, falling asleep, like, you know, at nighttime, I was tired, like I kept sort of like, dozing off or like catching my mind wandering. And then the next day, I was like, I’m gonna read this book in the bath. And so I got in the bath, and I got to section two I started reading them out loud. And then I was like, Holy shit, I get it now, like the use of consonants. The word play that just like sort of doesn’t like, reading out loud for me, often really brings things to life, which I should know about myself. But like, for whatever reason, I didn’t think to do that with this collection. But as soon as I did, like, the rhythm became instantly clear. The poems are like fast, like, I wanted to read them really fast. And like, I’m assuming he comes from that tradition of like spoken word that we talked about before. But like all of that all of a sudden became really clear that jokes became more clear. The playfulness became more clear. And then I was like, really hooked. And I was noticing things that I hadn’t noticed. Like, for example, the still life of like, the different rap album covers. I, I understood it the first one’s like Kanye, it’s drop out or whatever. And I was like, Oh, he’s talking about the drop out, bear like, Oh, I know. And then the next three, I totally missed. And then it wasn’t till I was reading it out loud that I was like, oh, oh, he’s talking about common or like, Oh, I know, this album. And like, so for me once I started reading it out loud and got a little bit like started taking it less seriously. I liked it so much more. So I that was sort of my big like, that was like my overall experience with it. It was like the reading it like because there’s so many consonants in this in these poems. Well, I think like rap music, yeah.

Nate Marshall 6:25
Cortney has a real great like year. That comes through in these poems. But I also I’m thinking about the way that it’s like what we were talking about before we started rolling about how I think people think of poetry as a very serious art form. And some of that is like, is something that poets cultivate intentionally or has been cultivated intentionally around poets, right. So like, there’s all this stuff, you know, poetry being like, the sort of the intellectual art form of the intellectual literature, right? It is kind of like a society that doesn’t have poetry is not a society that is mature, or, you know, all this kind of right weirdness or whatever, which, like, me, I’m like, not deeply invested in as a thing. But like, the thing that I think that that misses is, is that the stuff is fun. And there’s a way that like, with novels, we’re allowed to, like, have fun to be like, Wow, this novel is really funny, is deeply entertaining. Even if we don’t think of that stuff as, quote unquote, high literature like literary fiction, even though there’s a lot of literary fiction that’s like, legit funny as hell or whatever. I think about someone like Matt Johnson, or whomever, right, right, like the sellout, right? And so Paul Beatty is right, this sort of tradition of satire, right? For was received by the name. Black no more, yeah, Skyler, all the way up to baby and Johnson, all these folks. But like, that exists in poetry too, right. And like, but I think that this is the thing, right? And this is the thing that I really liked about this book, and why its engagement with hip hop and with music broadly, is interesting to me, is I think that a lot of the fun energy of poetry, in the kind of in the 20th century, maybe departed poetry and went to music. Especially when we like started, when these like very, very text, heavy music became sort of dominant, like hip hop, had certain kinds of pop music and certain kinds of r&b they just have a lot of words in them. Right? Yeah. And so a lot of like, the people who in a different period would have been like, the sort of fun poets, right, the sort of fun and popular poets like, they write pop songs, which school, which I’m not mad at, but you know,

Traci Thomas 8:44
Yeah. But this felt to me, like, when I once I started reading it out loud. I was like, Oh my gosh, this is rap music, like the use of like, consonance the use of like, a rhyme within a rhyme or, like the line would have like, rhymes within, not at the end, you know, like you think of like a poem or like a sonnet or whatever, like, but like rhymes throughout that worked, or like similar sounds throughout. And then all these like referential moments. Like, that’s one of my favorite things about rap is like, when a rapper references something, and I’m like, Oh, I know what they’re talking about. Or like, oh, you know, Drake will like talk about a basketball player or whatever. And I’m like, Oh, yes, Chef curry with the pot. I’m familiar. I’m a big warriors fan, like, so this, this had that of like, I’m not explaining any of these references to you. And if you know what I’m talking about, you know what I’m talking about. And if you don’t, it’s totally over your head, and we’re not going back and I’m never bringing it up again. And for me, that is like so. Like Lil Wayne does that so much, right? Like real reference, like some little thing and then he’ll go and dig into the sound and he’ll use the same word. Three different ways, but different spellings and like, Courtney does that a bunch in this book like kill us the site like I mean, of course, the Ghazal the Ghazaleh How do you say that word? has, I don’t know Google goes all gas or whatever the jump man pillow. Like, of course, that one just felt like so, like, put a beat under that that should slaps all day every day. Like, I’m interested. Absolutely. Like, I definitely understood, I definitely felt that, like, hip hop and listen, I hate to say it cuz I feel like it’s like hip hop because it’s a black poet and I don’t. And it’s not that at all obviously, this really felt like hip hop. Yeah, he’s writing about hip hop albums. He’s writing, like, I just could feel I could feel so much like influence of rap music. And I felt like, as soon as I started saying it out loud, I could hear the music in the poetry, which sometimes I take a poem out loud, and I’m still like, I have no fucking clue what this person’s talking about. But these like, came alive to me in a way that I was really surprised about.

Nate Marshall 10:48
I mean, to that thing of like, thinking about it almost as like an album, or thinking about it in the conversation with rap music. One of the things I think this also shares with with rap is like, for me, like, rap is many things. But one of the things it is is kind of like, it’s the form of in particular black coming of age, and especially sort of black masculine coming of age, right. So think, like, think about so many of the sort of like, Great or canonical Rap Albums right? biggies ready to die pucks me against the world. Knauss Illmatic, college dropout, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, like a lot of these joints are really about this sort of coming of age, right? And even even albums that aren’t that aren’t exactly that like something. You know, like, what I like to call like, Jay Z’s like late Tim Duncan era 444. That’s, that’s, it’s a kind of album, thinking about his own maturation, right? And that, that’s like, exactly what this book is kind of doing. Right? It’s wrestling, like, what that means what it means to just like, grow up in a particular time in a particular place.

Traci Thomas 12:00
And you are totally like, in my head as I was reading this, obviously, because we just talked like that day. And I kept thinking about first poet and how like, if this if you’re a young black dude, and coordinate Lamarr Charleston as your first poet, you fucking love poetry for the rest of your life, like you’re chasing this book, because he is speaking so specifically to young black men. And because as we sort of talked about last time, a little bit like there is this shift in the book towards like, this suburban young black man. Like, I think in the earlier part, that’s not as explicit or or maybe he moved at some point in his life. I don’t exactly know. But that’s sort of the sense that I got, but like, there is a range to black experience in this book, where it feels like whether you are suburban, urban, or maybe even rural, like, there are poems in here that speak to you. And I just kept thinking, like, wow, if this was my first poetry collection, like maybe I wouldn’t think of white men and natures so much when someone says poem, like it just, this is like a, it just, I don’t know, it was like, very, it was an exciting read. For me. He seems also like, I don’t know if maybe that’s just because the poems are about coming of age, he seemed very young to me also, like, like a younger person. I don’t know how old he is. But I was like, Oh, he’s like a 25 year old poet, like you just had like a very young energy. But again, that could just be because like, he was talking about earlier iterations of himself. We talked about this a little bit last week, but I want you to give me a definitive answer. What makes a poem good? Is there such thing is like, an objectively good poem? Is there such thing as a, as a agreed upon thing that makes a poem good? Or is that really just like up to the reader and the critics?

Nate Marshall 13:48
That’s a good question. Um, there are certain critics who would say, yes, there is an objective, or, you know, certain sort of readers approach, you’d say, yes, there’s an objectively good thing. I don’t really think there is right, like there’s a book that’s actually it’s actually about more about fiction, but like, I think most of it kind of applies to poetry on this book called craft in the real world by Matthew molasses. And like, in that joint, he’s sort of talking about the ways in which craft is all about culture, right. So the things that we think of as good writing are entirely shaped and informed by our cultural context. Right. And so what is effective writing in, you know, mid century Cold War, United States could be quite different than what constitutes good or evocative writing in 18th century Japan or whatever. Right, right. Right, right. And I think that’s really true. There is this like, I don’t know. I’m like taking a class right now, which is sort of strange, fun. So in this class, one of the things we’ve been talking about is this, this thing called New criticism, right, which is this like, literary it’s sort of unimportant. If you’d like slipped through as part of your English class is no one’s ever gonna get at you about it. It’s fine. But um, it’s this way of reading literature that sort of comes into vogue in like, the middle part of the 20th century. And the whole idea of it is we just close read the text, we don’t know. Yeah, think about biographical details, we don’t think about the sort of wider context out of which the work of marches, it’s just words on a page, and that has to sort of stand alone on its own. Right, respectfully, that’ll make no damn sense. Because like, because words are actually cultural artifacts, right? Like, sure. I mean, period, like, like the fact of language, or even the fact of like, language being written down, like a notation of language, versus language being the sort of abstract, verbal or physical thing that we do. Right? That’s all cultural, you know, but the thing that people don’t think about in terms of like, new criticism, I promise, I’m gonna like, no-

Traci Thomas 15:56
I’m sorry, yes, you’re doing great, you’re doing great.

Nate Marshall 15:58
The thing that people don’t think about is a lot of the guys who were early in starting that were also like a valid, kind of white supremacist and segregationist, I just gonna write about that. And this was, and this was coming up in this moment, where two things were sort of happening, like coming out of the 1920s and 30s. What do you have, you have like the new new grow moment, the Harlem Renaissance, you have this moment where people where there’s a lot of this kind of like socialist social movement literature, this literature of the quote unquote, masses, right. And so a lot of 20th century literature, including, like, you know, the the kind of graduate program that I went to an MFA program, that whole thing comes out of this moment, that is all about sort of a rejection of a certain kind of social critique. And instead about like literature as a sort of terrain of like, the rugged individual. And like, that’s fine. I guess, like, that’s one way of doing it, but we should just understand that, like, that way of understanding literature, is has a political agenda. And so, you know, I’m, and yeah, and that’s, and that’s just like, one agenda that we we don’t necessarily have to subscribe to. But one of the things that I do really love about this book, too, to sort of come back to it is, is what you were saying about the kind of suburban pneus of this? Right? Because I think that, you know, since we’re not new critics, and we can like think about the world as it actually is, right? The reality of like, America is that we have this this vision of black people as a sort of fundamentally urban population. And that is really kind of antiquated, right? Like, and is increasingly more so. Right. So like, where I’m from in Chicago, right, which is, you know, where Courtney is, is also kind of coming out of right? The city of Chicago has lost hundreds of 1000s of black people in the last few decades. Right? And, but where have all those people gone? Well, some of them have, like, left the area entirely, but a lot of them who’ve gone to the suburbs, right? So this is a fundamental part of if you want to understand something of the singular black experience, or the black experience writ large, in his larger dynamics of the country, the region, whatever, like you have to think like meaningfully about the suburbs. It can’t just be the sort of quote unquote, inner city story.

Traci Thomas 18:18
Right. Okay. There’s two things I want to touch back on. And I don’t know if I’m gonna remember remind me that I want to come back to suburbs. Yeah, about the new credit, what is it new criticism? Yeah, I feel like first of all, Imani Perry talks about this in South America. Oh, I haven’t gotten she does. I feel like she does. I can’t remember. But when you said it, I was like, that reminds me of monetary anyways, I feel like what’s so interesting about what you’re saying about that is like, that, of course, is a type of criticism of art. And I think that, you know, from from what you’re saying, and like, from my small understanding, it also was like in the theater and music and like all sorts of art. But also it feels very much like politically right now, what a lot of like Republican conservative right wing white supremacist organizations and groups are doing with like, the current quote, unquote, culture wars, sure, you know, like this call back, like, we want to get rid of affirmative action. We don’t want to say gay in our schools, like, we want to take all of the context out of everything, and therefore bring it back to neutral but of course, neutral in this country is straight whites is able bodied, healthy, all of those things and like that what’s happening now is of a tradition from like, of this time, after, you know, or pre and post sort of World War Two and pre and then obviously reconstruction and you know, like that this is a response to a political moment and not just like, oh, let’s think about art in a different way. It’s like no, this actually is connected to other things and like that, it’s coming back again in the band books and all that stuff, I think is just like so interesting because As I think, in 2022, a lot of people are obsessed with the current moment and forget about the historical context of so many things. And like this is part of a very American tradition of trying to erase other people’s experience on account of purity or art or whatever the thing is. And then about this, like suburban ness is like, I think it’s this is I’m like being very pop culture. So when people listen to this episode and a year, you’re gonna like, What the fuck is this reference? But it’s making me think of all this conversation about Russell Wilson this week, sir, sure. Like, isn’t it not corny, cheesy, corny, is not corny, you know, is is Ciara a gold digger as if she doesn’t have her own money, but like fighting shark go off, like, whatever. But I think that like, there is a feeling among, I think some black people and many white people that like being from the suburbs makes you less black, or more corny, or all of these things. And I think to your point of what you’re saying is like, there’s a lot of fuckin black people in the suburbs, for a lot of reasons, including, you know, white migration back into urban centers, and, you know, all of those issues. But I think it’s interesting that there’s so many black writers and creators who are from the suburbs and who were raised in the suburbs, or lived in the suburbs, or part of their lives or went to school there, and that they don’t talk about that. And so it allows this like, stereotype of the suburbs being like, for sellouts, even though there are so many black people there and like it’s very much a base for black people, just like urban centers are just like rural communities are and I just wonder like, Why do you think more black people don’t embrace that, if that is their story?

Nate Marshall 21:46
That’s a great question. Wow. Down, you know, there’s this, this really great scholar, who I believe is at Northwestern named Mary Pattillo. And she has this book called Black picket fences. And it’s sort of about the black middle class. And when I think about that book a lot. And then, you know, like, even like going all the way back is II Franklin Frazier, who’s like old school sociologists has this book called The Black bourgeoisie. Right? Or even like our kind of people, right, this kind of, so this this sort of question of class and how class functions within blackness? I think one of the reasons why a lot of I mean, also, let me just say, like, and that’s not this is not me trying to sort of like, lay down my own Negro credentials or whatever. But like,

Traci Thomas 22:31
I’m not You’re not from the suburbs, not from the suburbs? I know. I am. I am. I am from a city, but I am from the suburb part of it. I’m from Oakland, but Oakland is super segregated city. And I’m from what you might consider the suburbs or as they’re familiarly known in the hills, so I am a more of a Suburban. So we have both sides.

Nate Marshall 22:53
Right. So I think that the thing about it is, I think, I think the reason why why a lot of black folks sort of struggle to talk about this, in a really meaningful way, is a few things. It’s kind of like it’s a, it’s a double bind, right? One, on one hand, like, you understand that there are all these stereotypes about blackness being being kind of urban, right? And being connected to city centers, right. And so to embrace, something that is sort of not urban, is to feel yourself being less black. And this is one of the things that like Courtney is getting at in a lot of these poems, that I think is really interesting. But I also think like, you know, also, I think that a lot of, if you grew up in a place, right, the thing about growing up in a place is you didn’t choose it. Right. And, you know, for a lot of us, like who had parents in the, you know, 70s 80s 90s, whatever, who, you know, left city centers or left wherever and went out to the suburbs, you know, those are really complicated decisions, those decisions that are that are motivated by a number of things and like, in part, right, at least not, not entirely, but at least in part, those are often decisions that are kind of motivated by by notions that we might think of as anti blacker classes. And so as we grow up, and like have a critique of that, or have a kind of analysis of that then I think like, people don’t necessarily want to you know.

Traci Thomas 24:29
They’re not like shade at their parents. Right?

Nate Marshall 24:31
Right, they don’t they don’t want to throw shade at their parents but they also like don’t want-

Traci Thomas 24:35
Don’t want to admit a product-

Nate Marshall 24:37
talk to it, because you’re like, I didn’t sign up for that. It was just where I happen to be. Which is which is like fair, you know, I think is true and fair. Yeah, yeah, I think about what’s what’s the name? Tallahassee coats like very first book, beautiful struggle, the beautiful struggle. Yeah. Which people like rarely talk about, but that is actually my favorite time of the book. Like, I like told him this once on Instagram, I was like, I was like,

Traci Thomas 25:03
Yo, and then he blocked you.

Nate Marshall 25:07
Like, he was like-

Traci Thomas 25:09
I haven’t read it yet I own it, but I haven’t read it. So I can’t, I can’t wait.

Nate Marshall 25:12
I really love it. And I taught it. I taught it in this class about the literature of hip hop. But um, there’s a point in that book in his kind of story where they move from wherever they’re living in Baltimore to the county, right. And he has this whole thing that he’s sort of mad, and he’s like, you know, whatever. And his and his dad is kind of like, dawg, I’m tired. Like, I’m not, like, if I can get this little bit of peace of mind about sort of my geography in this way. I’m gonna do that. And then and then he kind of finds it like hard to begrudge his father this like little piece of piece. So yeah, so I guess I’m just like, I just think I just think they’re really complicated. I think suburbs are complicated. I think cities are also really complicated. Also, I think we talk poorly about cities, right? Because, I mean, like what you’re saying about Oakland, you’re from Oakland, but from Oakland, but growing up in different parts of Oakland means different things, right. And that’s not always

Traci Thomas 26:09
Oakland is a city that is notorious. For people who know nothing about Oakland sort of in the way Chicago I’m sure is like, notorious for bad for for violent rings, even though also I mean, Chicago has incredible, incredible history that I probably don’t know very much about, but like Oakland is also the home of the Black Panthers. Oakland, like, unlike Cal Berkeley, is right there. And like all, you know, all of that is like part of the Bay Area history. And, you know, it’s it is an Oakland has changed so much. And I think people think about Oakland differently now than they did when I was a kid. And obviously, before I was born, but like, you know, I was born in the 80s. And Oakland was Oakland very much in a way that people were scared of in the 90s and 2000. And like, I even have internalized like, I’m from Oakland, but like not that part of it. Like as if, if it makes a difference, right, like, but and I also like feel guilty, like claiming Oakland because I’m like, I know, I’m from the hills. Like I know, it’s not the same, but like, there it is really complicated. And especially in a place like Oakland that’s like diverse, allegedly. Because the Bay Area is diverse, you know, it is but it is segregated. Like a city like New York is super diverse and super segregated. So I think you’re right, like cities become really complicated because they take on certain narratives, right?

Nate Marshall 27:29
Right. And often with the suburbs just simply because we just don’t know those places. They they kind of sidestep some of that. But like, you know, if you’re from if you’re from the Chicagoland area, right? And you’re from the city, but you’re from, say, this neighborhood called like the Gold Coast or you’re from Beverly, right, or you’re from like, certain parts. That means a sort of a different thing. Even you know, in the 90s or 80s. Certainly. Then if you’re from a suburb, that’s a suburb, yes. But as a suburb like Calumet City, or Markham or Harvey, right that are these very like working class kind of hardscrabble, predominantly black and brown, like the suburbs that in the same way that city neighborhoods did experience like really devastating, like white flight and intentional divestment, right. Like, arguably, if you’re a black person who grew up in a kind of hyper segregated, poor and working class community within the city limits, you have just as much if not more in common with someone from Harvey or Markham or wherever they do with someone who grew up came up downtown.

Traci Thomas 28:42
Right? Well, I think that’s the other thing is like, the assumption about a suburb is that it’s like a white sub soccer mom, right? Location like that. Yeah, that it’s fancy, that it’s white, like, overwhelmingly white, that it’s wealthy, that the schools are better. Like, I think that there’s a lot of assumptions about suburbs that are just not true. In the same way. You know, like I said, Before, I have assumptions about a poet, right? Like when I think of a poem or a poet, I think of like, this thing that I’ve been told is what it is. And obviously, the older I get, the more that I learned that a suburb is not that and a poet is not that an Oakland is not that and like it just that we’re told these things, and then they’re reinforced. And I think like, there is a sense of maybe I don’t wanna speak for other people, but I think there is a sense of like, shame of admitting that you’re from a suburb, right? Like that, that somehow means that you are less black, or have had an easier life or have had more privileges, which may or may not be true, right? I mean, not the less black part.

Nate Marshall 29:48
I don’t believe in- you know, the question of privilege, right?

Traci Thomas 29:53
And right, and then people don’t talk about it honestly, because of that. And so then these stereotypes continue on If more people were Courtney, and talking about their experience in the suburbs in their work, we would have more, you know, representation as far as like suburban black experience go, right.

Nate Marshall 30:11
But you know, this the suburbs in many ways, like when I when they’re imagined, right, when we, when we think of like the sort of history of that there’s this, this Levittown kind of lineage right of the like, mid 20th century, and all in, you know, in the track rains and all that the suburbs are meant to be a utopia, which, and when I say utopia, I mean, in the kind of literal sense, they’re meant to be a sort of no place. Right. And so the ways in which I think like cities and also just like literature that is sort of about that is really placed based. I think that sometimes people struggle to do that well, about suburbs, because suburbs were cultivated to just not be a place to be sort of largely interchangeable terms. So if I live outside of, you know, Tulsa, Oklahoma, it’s not really that different than if I live outside of Dallas than if I live outside of Chicago than if I live outside of Oakland. And if I live outside of Milwaukee, you know, it’s simply a matter of like, climate preference, and like, where you know, where someone’s job happens to be. It’s not really right. But the other thing, too, that I’m thinking about in terms of, you know, talking about this sort of like black suburban, like shame that I think Courtney is like, doing real work, deconstructing, I think that part of it is all these class, these sort of antiquated class assumptions that we have about suburbs and suburbs versus cities, right, that one just aren’t really true. But two, are aren’t really true. And maybe anymore. But two, I think one of the reasons why a lot of black riders are just writers of color broadly, who come out of those spaces, feel resistant to naming themselves as suburban, and then we’ll kind of like move to city centers, and then sort of claim that or what have you is, because often within those spaces, they are sort of class marginal. And so they don’t feel like they’re like, there’s this thing where it’s like, okay, yeah, like I came up in this kind of, like, fancy suburb, right, but I didn’t actually have access to those things. And in some ways, in fact, it was even worse, because like I had, you know, like, I had to sort of suffer the indignity of like, witnessing classmates with so much. And knowing that I did not have that, versus if we were just in a community, right, where everyone is sort of like this is where we’re at everyone is sort of working class in this way. Right.

Traci Thomas 32:37
And I feel like when when black folks are in suburban communities that are mostly black working class, you know, which often happens outside of city centers, they don’t refer to themselves as being suburban, they refer to themselves as being from outside the city, right, which is like a different turn. And I feel like oftentimes, when black people say they’re from the suburbs, that they’re actually like, signaling that they were the only black person in their community, right, like they were from like a white place. Because when I again, think about the Bay Area, you know, people know Oakland, San Francisco, San Jose, but there’s a bunch of other cities and towns and stuff that are I guess, suburbs. I don’t think of them that way. Like Like, I guess Calabasas is a suburb of Los Angeles. I don’t I don’t think about it that way. Because you know, I live here but I don’t live in Calabasas. But I like live down here. But like I’m thinking like a place like Richmond, California, right. People don’t call that a suburb. But that’s a black as fuck suburbs, right? Like he’s thinking

Nate Marshall 33:28
about Richmond. I was because I was. I mean, I was thinking about the brother Kugler, like he’s from out

Traci Thomas 33:33
Oh, yeah, he has a lot of friends. He’s from Yeah, yeah. He’s from Oakland, I think.

Nate Marshall 33:38
I think so. But But again, right, like, from Oakland, her family and rich, Richmond sort of go back and forth. And this is like part of the thing that that Courtney is even talking about? And I think this is why like, you were like, in that first section, it’s not entirely clear to me,

Traci Thomas 33:53
right, where we’re located. Right. Yeah.

Nate Marshall 33:57
Yeah. And so a thing that I think is maybe different about the way that class functions amongst black folks. And the ones that African Americans like, versus maybe other communities in the country is like, it’s rare that like, you’re that far removed from us, from folks who are like, working class struggling with however we want to sort of term it right, whatever kind of, we want to use that day. So there’s a kind of like, there’s a proximity to certain whether whether or not we’re like comfortable with that and whether or not we like talk to those people. There is a proximity that we have to reckon with, we have to make certain decisions about and I don’t know that that’s true in the same way of like, you know, I know white families were like, no one’s poor. Means poor. Everyone has a good job. Everyone went to college. Right, which is great. I don’t read I don’t know a black family where that is true.

Traci Thomas 34:56
That’s the case, right?

Nate Marshall 34:57
Maybe like that nuclear family like that.

Traci Thomas 35:00
For sure, but like extended.

Nate Marshall 35:02
There’s some uncle or there’s some cousin or there’s whatever, yeah, you won’t go far and be like, Okay, we’re like, this is where we’re at. And I think this is, again, this is part of the thing about like, that hesitation towards, like embracing the suburban piece.

Traci Thomas 35:18
Because it’s not as much like an identity, right? Or a black person because like your cousin or your aunt or whatever, who you see all the time, whose kids you fuck with regularly, who are your best friends and all of that things are like, it doesn’t feel as all encompassing as like a suburban lifestyle.

Nate Marshall 35:36
My family are going back there for church or for family stuff or whatever. And also, like, I mean, this is just and this is not even like, talking about feelings, like this is just a fat, like black people being middle class, black middle classes is far more tenuous and far, far less stable than than white rank classes. And so there is a real sense of like, okay, yeah, but I can’t mess it up. Because we can end up right back to wherever it is that my parents fuck, quote, unquote, got out from? Right, right. Right. And I don’t, I don’t think that white people who are similarly situated in terms of education and income, etc. I don’t think that they have those same kinds of class anxieties, which is funny because we often like, in this country, especially the discourse really since, like, the Trump era has been about how can I say this has been so much about like, justifying, like white misbehavior, using using like class anxiety as as a as a kind of cover? And I’m like, a nobody more class anxious than the nigger like, right.

Traci Thomas 36:46
Right. I would talk about this suburban thing forever. But I feel like we also have to talk about poetry, allegedly. But we’re gonna get right off that poetry shed again and get right back into something more interesting. No offense.

Nate Marshall 37:05
No, no, I was thinking about this thing. Because you asked this question I sort of I like, went on into my like, Professor mode, talk about new criticism issue, and I didn’t actually look to the question. Okay. Is there is that what makes a poem good? Oh, yeah. I don’t know. If there’s like a single answer. The answer for me is, is like, I think a poem sort of function like a tuning fork. In that, like, you strike it, and there’s a sound or there’s a vibration. And like, even after it sort of stops, ostensibly, you still kind of hear there’s a resonance, right? There’s some there’s something that like, there’s a there’s a residue, there’s something that’s sort of sticky about it, for me like that, like those are the poems that that drum, right? I don’t necessarily have to understand every word or like, what is sort of going on in the story of it. But But does it have like some resonance? Does it have? Is it just sticky in that way? Right, whether because of how it sounds or what it’s talking about, or the issues that introduces or whatever?

Traci Thomas 38:09
Yeah, first of all, that’s the most poet answer of what makes something good. It’s like a tuning fork that’s sticky. And that I’m like, Okay, go with it go off poetry. I agree with you. i So you talked about this last time to like the math of occasion of poetry, like where there’s this one solution or one answer. And I think that my whole life, I had thought of poetry in that way. And like, basically, until last year, when Reginald Dwayne Betts came on the show, and basically said, like, if there’s one piece of a poem that like sticks with you, like, that’s a good poem kind of thing, which is sort of similar to what you’re saying. And ever since, like thinking about poetry in that way. I feel like I am able to read it and get a lot more out of it. Because I’m like, Oh, I don’t like this one doesn’t work for me, but I gotta go. And I don’t feel this need to like, what are they talking about? What does this word mean? Like, I can just like, Oh, this one works? Yay. I’m like, I just like take my like, you know what? I’m reading this. I take my little notes. And I’m like, oh, okay, lessons for Courtney Love this, like here for this poem. Or like, Jesus peace. Ooh, very interested in this Jesus piece. We’re talking about love jewelry. Or of course, my personal favorite was the poem about the ADDIE doll. Because of course, that was sticky. For me. I had an audio doll. I’m with you, Courtney, you know, you know what it’s like. So I definitely feel like thinking about poems differently. allowed me to like poems more like, yeah, giving myself permission to be like, Oh, I don’t get it. I don’t have to waste my time with this. Like, I can come back to this poem and five years, and maybe I will get it, you know, and like, and in every poetry collection, I’m thinking like, oh, I have to love every poem for me to have loved the collection. But now I sort of think out of it, like, what percentage of the poems did I really like and like, if that percentage feels like a lot like that, I like the collection and if I feel like not a lot that I didn’t really like, you know, like, even in your books like, I read, I read wild hundreds and I read FINMA. And like in both of them. There were poems that I was like, oh my god, I’m so excited. And then there are poems, I was like, I have no idea what this person is talking about. But like, I thought the collection was great. You know, like, I left it being like, this is so good. And I do have to shout out you had a poem in wild hundreds. I believe that it’s called candy store. I just want to know, like, where the, the other snack related poets are, because like, that’s the kind of poetry that I quit reading regularly. There is a big hole in the snack poet market that I would like to see filled with many more snack related books.

Nate Marshall 40:42
I feel like because you’re always asking people like, what are you eating? What are you drinking? lately? Right? Yeah, this seems like a candy store.

Traci Thomas 40:49
I have found that between the Addy poem and the candy store poem. I just want to say that Chicago poets are doing something very right. You guys are very much tapping in.

Nate Marshall 41:01
You’re like, Ah, yes. 90s ephemera, and food.

Traci Thomas 41:05
It’s delicious. And like, specifically candy store. Like that’s a specific kind of food. It’s not broccoli. Like we’re not talking about the joints and nature. We’re talking about junk food.

Nate Marshall 41:18
So I got a poem for you. And this is a good one because it also is like a Chicago suburban poem. Okay. Oh, to cheese fries by wholesale. Devadas.

Traci Thomas 41:27
Okay, I haven’t read any of their work. So I need to do that.

Nate Marshall 41:31
I’m gonna send you that when we’re done because

Traci Thomas 41:36
Okay. Is there a term for poems that are super referential? Because those are the poems that I really like? Like, I like being like, Oh, I know what this person is talking about. I’m less interested in someone’s interior life. But like, I think of like, a nice has that like, great poem about like, Michael Jordan. Oh, yeah. Like pushing off or something.

Nate Marshall 41:58
Yeah. Yeah. That liar. That yeah, yeah.

Traci Thomas 42:03
Like, I just love that shit.

Nate Marshall 42:05
Shout out beneath except for that poem.

Traci Thomas 42:08
Okay, all right, because of course, I like to call on course,

Nate Marshall 42:11
Mine didn’t push off. Okay, it’s fine. conversation with me. Mike didn’t push off is all I’m saying.

Traci Thomas 42:18
I don’t have a horse in this race. Both you and Hanif have graciously joined this podcast I have I as I’ve mentioned, I’m a warrior’s fan. So I don’t really care. But I just like reading a poem where I’m like, I know what they’re talking about.

Nate Marshall 42:32
Yeah, well, okay, so is there a name for that kind of the name? Mostly, like people would call like, a poem that is like, based off of a piece of art acrostic or like the compressors stick?

Traci Thomas 42:45
Stick with an F.

Nate Marshall 42:46
No, no, um, EKPH

Traci Thomas 42:50
Oh yes, mispronouncing that-

Nate Marshall 42:56
You’re good. But um, so you know, I think of expressive poetry as like also not just being strictly about visual art but could also be something in conversation subconsciously with some sort of popular art or music or or maybe even like a sort of cultural moment or cultural artifact like you know, Michael Jordan not pushing off in triumphing justly over the Utah Jazz or you know, or whatever,

Traci Thomas 43:25
Right. Or a candy store

Nate Marshall 43:27
So yeah, yeah, I think that’s like right but I think the thing about a classic the classic stuff typically is like it usually is about a specific thing right so might be like the thing about like when we’re talking about the one that the series of poems all the still likes right that are that are about or using the the album cover as a jumping off place.

Traci Thomas 43:52
Did you know all the album covers there’s a few i didn’t know

Nate Marshall 43:55
Let’s let’s go through them let’s go through.

Traci Thomas 43:58
Ok so the first one is still life with the dropout bear sitting in the stands. Yeah. Deal life with Kendrick Lamar is Mama’s van Okay, yeah, in the title got it. Still Life with crooked painting and bullet holes in grayscale? I didn’t have this one.

Nate Marshall 44:13
Um, wait, let me look at the point. I don’t know it just off the title

Traci Thomas 44:17
The thing that he says almost always who the person is towards the end?

Nate Marshall 44:21
Oh, that’s, um, I think this Slim Shady LP, or Marshall Mathers is one of those. Let me think of it. Google. Okay. Continue.

Traci Thomas 44:32
The next one is still life with torso of corn road. neo soul singer. I think that’s the Angelou right.

Nate Marshall 44:37
Yeah. Okay. And not only is that the album, or is that just the

Traci Thomas 44:43
It must be the album, right?

Nate Marshall 44:45
Yeah, but it could just be the video. That’s interesting. Oh, sure. I don’t know.

Traci Thomas 44:50
I think I’d love to be topless.

Nate Marshall 44:54
Smith has like this great poem that I think is like, where they would sort of talk about like Seeing the Untitled video and like trying to like look down the TV. Like

Traci Thomas 45:09
the nurses all of us.

Nate Marshall 45:10
Yes, I mean, reasonable. Damn I actually don’t Yeah, I don’t know if I know what this one is.

Traci Thomas 45:17
Okay, what about still life with women and balloons and Anwar? I didn’t know that one.

Nate Marshall 45:22
Yeah. Oh no, absolutely. I don’t remember. I mean, I’m sure I know that album but I just I you know, I like

Traci Thomas 45:29
Cortney if you’re listening which I doubt you are, but if you are, will you please tell me all the answers?

Nate Marshall 45:35
Okay, better this I’m texting him after this and be like, Yo, give me all the albums.

Traci Thomas 45:40
Okay, still life with color orange we know is channel orange right? Still Life with young black woman’s faced etched into a school desk is that Miss education? That’s Miss education. I never realized that that’s what that was an image still live with light skinned rapper wearing newsboy cap common right? Yeah, I believe so. Yeah, I must be common. Still Life with black boys face overlaying project buildings. Is that North?

Nate Marshall 46:08
Is that nomadic? Yeah, that’s ematic and then

Traci Thomas 46:11
still life with skateboarding rapper orbited by nerd paraphernalia. I think he says that.

Nate Marshall 46:17
Or oh, no, no, that’s lupa. You’re right. That is?

Traci Thomas 46:20
I think he says it in it that it’s Lupe there’s a line. Yes. I would not have known that.

Nate Marshall 46:25
Yeah that’s Lupe but it could also be it could also be like one of the mdrd Like, like the description would actually I think also Right, right. Right. Neptune’s albums but yeah, that’s that’s lupa. That’s the first little bit record.

Traci Thomas 46:36
So we only don’t know two for sure. The balloons one and then the bullet hole one. Yeah. Yeah, you’ll get me answers. We’ll we’ll get to the bottom of this people. I’m sure people are listening right now screaming at their radio or their phone or whatever being like, you idiots. I get so many. Whenever I do this, and I don’t know the answer or something. Then I get all these DMS. But then the best part is in like six months, someone is going to DM me and be like, Hey, I listened to the episode. And it’s this album after like six days of people just barraging me I’m gonna get like, I got this. I got something like last month for something from January 2021. Being like, I didn’t see it updated on your website. Quick update. What am I gonna say?

Nate Marshall 47:19
I don’t know, I keep doing these.

Traci Thomas 47:23
Because I was like, wait a day. Like, I can’t do another episode until someone tells me the answer. But I appreciate it. So please do tell me but I always laugh when someone does it like a year later.

Nate Marshall 47:35
I – look, if you don’t do it, you have like a week, a week to clarify after that. Yeah, if you want to, like, if you want to use this as like some sort of excuse to like, talk to me, then like, make a joke about it or like make some other comment because I obviously have this information already. Or I don’t need you know, I messed up my life.

Traci Thomas 47:56
It’s so social media is such a crazy place. Because before I had the show, I only interacted with people I knew. And now I interact with so many strangers, which I love and like is like generally pretty fun. But sometimes I’m like, you guys don’t know what you guys have. You really think I haven’t found this information? Like I didn’t immediately go and google it is done. So everyone you have a week from today. Today is April 27. Do you have a week so if the next episode of the stacks is appearing on your stacks feed, do not message me, but if it hasn’t yet, then feel free to let me know.

Nate Marshall 48:32
Right? And also you can only like say anything in the DMS if you subscribe.

Traci Thomas 48:37
Yes. Oh yeah.

Nate Marshall 48:39
If you’re booking episodes,

Traci Thomas 48:40
Please follow also.

Nate Marshall 48:44
No one has time for that no one has time for you non subscribers. I review all that. Come on.

Traci Thomas 48:50
I bet about 100 people are just gonna unsubscribe after this rant. They’re gonna be like she’s an ungrateful bitch. Don’t care about my heartaches. Well, whatever five I’ll miss you. Come back eventually. Okay, we I have something else I wanted to ask you about. This is like sort of a heady poetry question. Okay, love it. They’re probably not an answer. But one of the things about poetry that I have mentioned many times that I like, is I like form. I’m very curious about form, which is why like a guzzle or a gazelle or whatever the fuck that is. I talk about Ambach Pentameter a lot. I love that I love a poem that rhymes. I love a rhyming couplet. I even like it when it’s every other like a limerick style. I like that. I like when I can catch the rhythm. And it goes, I also like when there’s a rhythm, and it changes. I like that. And you do a thing that I need answers about, which is and Courtney does this a little bit, but you do it a lot. You make poems that visually look a certain way. So like whether it’s like a triangle that become like a diamond shape, like with the words on the page, or like I think Korea does this too, where it’s like, everything is indented left but Then like a little paragraph will be like moved to the right. And that’s form, like visual form. And I want to know about line endings, and also about the visual form of a poem. Like, how are you imagining that I’m supposed to be reading this? And how do you perform it? How can you perform a triangle? Does it change how you think about reading the poem out loud? If you are going to perform it somewhere?

Nate Marshall 50:26
That’s a great question. Dang. So the answer is, it depends.

Traci Thomas 50:34
Sorry, I knew this was coming.

Nate Marshall 50:35
No. So I think I was thinking about this before, when you were talking about your relationship to poems and like, really loving some poems in the collection. And then other ones being like, I don’t really know what this means, whatever moving on. Um, I think I tell my students is that the poem that you write on the page, like that’s really kind of sheet music. And so the song itself, like, the thing that really is actually the poem is what happens when that music gets interpreted, right. So when someone sits down to play that on a piano, or on a different instrument, or sing it or whatever, and each and we understand that each of those things, though, it might be quote, unquote, the same song is a different experience, right, constitutes a different experience. And so, you know, that’s why I really like the thing you said about, you know, if I don’t like it, maybe I’ll come back to it in five years, it’ll mean something different to me, and I’ll really like it. You know, I love that sort of open open invitation of that, because like, you know, if I’m like sitting down to play, I don’t Stevie Wonder’s loves in need of love on a piano, and I can’t play it. That doesn’t mean the song is wack, it means I just happen to have not played piano since I was nine. And so I’m not right, right. Right. Right. Right. But, and I think that poetry works a lot of the same ways. So setting that aside, that, for me, the physical thing of the page is, is it’s just like, it’s another way that you can give people information, right? It’s another way that you can offer something to folks, right. So sometimes, I might write a poem that has a kind of like physical, that does a physical thing on the page. And that is meant to mimic something that’s happening in the poem. Right? So there’s a there’s a poem in infinit, called the only boy, that where, where standards are inverted, right? So standards are literally like flipped upside down. I was just looking at that one. Yeah. And one of the reasons, the reason why that is, is because that poem is sort of like one of the kind of major images or kind of things in the poem is like, people playing double dutch, right? Which is like a big thing, where I grew up, like on my blog, and I had all sisters, right. And so double dutch was like a whole thing. And so what it requires is that when you read it, you kind of have to turn the book and the way you have to turn the rope, right? So it mimics the thing. So that can sometimes be the be what I’m trying to do sometimes like having a line of certain length or having lines of varying lengths, or the same length can speed people’s reading experience up or slow it down. Or it can make something into a joke, right?

Traci Thomas 53:16
Or you are signaling something to your reader. I think you’re telling me something about this poem is different than something about the previous poem. Like how you want me to read it and engage with it. Yeah, like that I need to make a different choice.

Well, not not even that you have to make a different choice, I’m just pointing out to you, it’s like a different experience. Right? Home is like a slightly, they’re, they’re all a part of a single experience. But like, that single experience has many different components in the same way that like, if you’re in a relationship, you know, sometimes it’s you know, you have moments that are very passionate and very whatever. Sometimes you have moments that are like, objectively bad, and a lot of stuff is sort of in between, but like if you think of your, your relationship, or your friendship or whatever, you have, like an overall feeling about it, but you can then also parse these individual mice. Like, that’s, for me, like what a what a poem is, it’s like the distillation of just a moment.

Sure. So for me as again, a person who loves form and rules and regulations and like that’s just part of my personality. Again, I love Shakespeare, because I like the iambic pentameter. I get mad when I see a Shakespeare play, and they don’t use the iambic pentameter. And they just read the lines through like, there’s an end of the line for a reason. And so when I read poems, I feel very strongly that like, the end of the line of the text is a choice by the poet and that should be respected. So when I read poems, oftentimes, I take a quick breath at the end of the poem, even if it’s just really quick like same thing with Shakespeare, like a lot of people know, you know, Shakespeare texts that are multiple lines, but like a good actor will will clip it at that time. In that 10 syllable, but sometimes when I hear poets read their own poems, they don’t fucking do that. So then I’m like, Well, why did you make the line and there? Why would you make that choice? If you don’t have to, you’re not forced, because you could do the thing work goes to the next line, which you’ve done in other poems. And so I just feel like I am so rigid. I’m such a rigid person that like, this is one of the reasons that poetry is really hard for me, because I’m like, trying to read into like, okay, like, I’m looking at your poems step. And it’s like, three lines on this side. And then the next three lines are intended a different way. And I’m like, How do I read this? Like, like, how do I make a choice? And I don’t know. So I just, I’m wondering if like you’re thinking about when you’re writing it, if you’re writing it, because it feels a way to write it? Or if you’re thinking about me, or someone else reading it, and how it feels to read it or not, or both, or neither?

Nate Marshall 55:57
Yeah, well, I’ll say when.

Traci Thomas 55:59
Or if I’m just being so neurotic.

Nate Marshall 56:02
I begin. When I write poems, I just make the linebreaks wherever it is vibes. I’m just like, it looks looks like a poem to me. If I’m handwriting or if I’m like, typing it, I’m just like, This feels like a long time.

Traci Thomas 56:18
I really want this also for Robert Frost. And like, yeah, who all those other people, like, I just really want to go to his journals and be like, I put my linebreaks where the vibes are, thank you, you know, the fives. You know, I love I love this for all of us.

Nate Marshall 56:35
But all my second drafts, like for the most part, are look like a single block of text. Okay, because after I like, experienced the vibes that I’m kind of like, okay, now I actually have to make a decision, like an adult. And at that point, then I start to think about, oh, are there? Is there some kind of organizing principle that I can use? Is there something here that I can, that I can think through? So like, for example, one of the earliest poems I ever published, which is not a very good poem, is about Rahm Emanuel, who was the old mayor of Chicago?

Traci Thomas 57:14
Who sucked. But he’s famous for being Obama’s chief of staff as well. Yeah.

Nate Marshall 57:18
Yeah. That he also cussed a lot. Right. And that was kind of Yeah. So I wrote this poem, when he was, I think, being elected. Like he was right when he announced that he was going to run or whatever. And the thing about the poem is every, because he had this sort of reputation for being really profane in the Clinton and Obama White House, I think in that poem, like, it’s like, built around fours, right? Because because of, you know, like a four letter word, four letter word, one, ROMs, a four letter word, which is funny to me, too. Yeah. And so then like, all the most of the stuff, all the standards were four lines long. Most of the lines were four words long, this kind of stuff. But like, I didn’t come up with that, at first, I was just writing this sort of semi see about this politician. And then I’m like, oh, wait a second, there’s this thing that I can do to like, give it a little more depth. But the reason why, like, aside from just being like people are bad readers are they’re not, they don’t pay attention to their own stuff. One of the reasons why I think, like, you may hear a poet read, and that feels like a really different experience than what is on the page is it is a different experience. Sure. And, you know, in the same way that like, I think about poems is like, being sheet music, right. And so that means that the sheet music is one component other than the actual player, like whoever’s engaging with the thing, or bringing it to life, whether that’s happening in your own head, or in a reading out loud, or some other kind of presentational thing. Those are the things that make up the poem that make up your experience of the poem. And so I don’t think reading my book is a different experience than like, seeing me read from my book, and it should write you this. It’s fundamentally different.

Traci Thomas 59:05
That’s right. But you know, poets who, like, read their work, and like, it’s not what they’ve written. Like, it’s like, what the words are the same, but it’s like, are you going to take a breath? Like, yeah, that’s supposed to rhyme like what’s happened, like, so? I don’t know. I think some of it is also I have a performance background. And so I think about performance in a very, like, intense I mean, I think about a lot of things in my podcasts of fidelity to the performance. Well, I’m I like to script I like a text I like like with sheet music. I like when someone does what is written and then when you break from it, it feels special. I feel like when someone is just riffing from jump, I’m like, Okay, well, can we get back to the root of the thing? Because your riff if you’re riffing on the first line, it’s like, okay, well, where are we going? And why are we here?

Nate Marshall 59:59
And yeah, like is the songs has been broken?

Traci Thomas 1:00:03
Yeah, that’s exactly right. And so when I like sometimes I’ll hear people like read a poem. And I’m like you’re reading this poem The same way you read the other poem, and they’re written totally different in your book. So what you’re telling me is that you don’t think that your writing is important, or you don’t think that your performance is important. Like you’re not, you’re not showing respect to the work that you’ve done, I don’t know. But again, I have such an intense relationship to the text, because of the years that I spent studying Shakespeare and like studying. And like, you know, there’s a whole art form to doing iambic pentameter, that involves staying faithful, tight, like, for example, I think I use this all the time. The the first line of Richard the Third is now is the winter of our discontent. And I am basically it should be now is the winter, but everyone performs it now is the winter of our discontent. And that is a choice that Shakespeare made to break the form from the beginning, because he knew that people would know that it was supposed to be iambic. So when you do now is the winter of like you’re really drawing people in, and people who like if you don’t understand Emmett pentameter, you’re not going to get that. But people who get it, it’s like a major moment. Same as like to be or not to be that is a famous line, but it also breaks the iambic pentameter. And so I feel like when poets don’t trust their work, I’m like, What the fuck are you doing? You wrote this book, and now you’re just reading it, like you’re reading the newspaper, like, and there’s 7000 lines. And each line only has four syllables. And why are you read it? Like, hello, I went to the store today, like, No, my records was like, hello, I went to the store today.

Nate Marshall 1:01:41
I love that you’re like, so. But you have like such strong feelings about this.

Traci Thomas 1:01:46
I have such strong feelings about the form. Because when I because when I pick up the book, I’m so insecure about my reading of poetry, that I am relying on that way of writing to inform how I should be reading it. I’m like, looking to the author to guide me, and like, and so when I feel like then when I see them, do it, and I’m like, That’s not at all. I thought we were getting out here. I feel like oh, no, I got the math problem, Roger. Anyways, this is I feel like maybe I need to go to therapy with therapy for this. Okay, we’re like so out of time. Just the last thing really quickly, we sort of talked about the title, but we always talked about the title and the cover. And I just love to know your quick thoughts about those two things. And then we can skit Atul.

Nate Marshall 1:02:32
Yeah. I mean, I love this title. I think it’s one I just, I think it’s funny. And I also think it does, like, it does the work of the book, which is like, really think through how a speaker or many speakers potentially like reconcile, kind of who they are and the sort of path that they are finding for themselves and, and the past that they feel are sort of prescribed by them by society. Right. And those past can be like contradictory and whatever. Right. And so I think there’s something about the pun. That does and Courtney’s first book, it has a kind of punny title. I wonder if like, this is just gonna be this thing, like his thing? Yeah. Because the first one was like, telepathology. He’s okay. So I’m like, okay, family, you just gonna, like you just go. Just, we just good luck, right? He’s trolling me winning spelling bees. And so I really love the title. I really liked the image. The one the one thing and this is like, not at all like, obviously, like, not, not at all a diss or whatever. Like, I have a great affection for the book and the poet and the poems. But um, I wish it was like more contrasting, same.

Traci Thomas 1:03:53
Like, how I literally could not see it. Yes. When I went to order the book, I was like, What the fuck is on this book, like, I could not figure out, it wasn’t until it actually got into my home. And I looked at it for a while that I was like, Oh, it’s a person with their hands. And then their mouth is open. And like, they kind of fade into the background, but you really can’t see that. Like, it’s so hard to see. And it is like a very cool image. And maybe they’re flipping us off. Like, it’s hard to know for sure the details of all of the art. And it’s a bummer. Like it should pop more.

Nate Marshall 1:04:25
Yeah, I’m very particular about like, Matt books versus glossy all this kind of stuff. Yeah. And I feel like this is a cover that would translate better if it were met

Traci Thomas 1:04:39
as Matt Yeah. Is your first book. I read your first book on my Kindle is your first book, Matt also.

Nate Marshall 1:04:44
So the first couple printings of it were I think now they might all be glossy, but they sort of went back and forth. But I think that image I love that image.

Traci Thomas 1:04:56
I love your book covers. I think they I was gonna say that I think that I was imagining it as a glossy cover. But now that you said that I’m like, Oh, I bet it would be even cooler and matte. That’s why I was wondering it. But also like, the colors of that cover are so good. Like, it’s just like, oh, and it has the contrast that you need, like the like, it’s a blue background.

Nate Marshall 1:05:22
And honestly, like, shout out my oldest sister who does hair, because like, she was sort of the one that I had, like a couple of images that I was thinking about. And the way that we picked that image. I was I was like, asking people who I knew, but like, the thing that clinched it for me is she was I think, in a in a shop working. And I was like, Yo, what, here’s like these five photos, or these five pictures, like which one do you like, and ask everyone in the shop like what like which ones? And like, it was it that was like pretty the clear consensus and I was like bet. Cool. And actually, one of the ones I didn’t use ended up being a nice, like first book cover.

Traci Thomas 1:06:03
Oh, really? Yeah. Recycling cover.

Nate Marshall 1:06:09
Like after the book came out, maybe you know, at some point, months after the book came out, I was like, oh, yeah, like, shout out Max and Singh who’s like a great artists book cover. And here’s a couple other ones that I thought about the almost word cover. And then Hanif was like, Yo, what’s, what’s that? And I was like, Oh, yeah.

Traci Thomas 1:06:31
Oh yeah, I love Wait. You’re in the spades game. And Hanif ‘s latest book.

Nate Marshall 1:06:35
Yeah. Where he’s like, Nate is almost certainly better than me. Yeah. The most important moment in American literature. Yes, absolutely. Okay.

Traci Thomas 1:06:43
That’s right. I just know, daunting. I mean, I know Danez, isn’t it, but I couldn’t remember who the other poets are. Okay. We have to go. We have to go. We’ll do this. On another episode. We’re talking about the spades game. Yes. Nate. Thank you so much. This was so fun. I didn’t ever think talking about poetry would be so fun. My blood pressure is up from the whole form conversation, but I think I think go take a nap or something or do yoga. Everyone, you can get Nate’s Books Wherever you get them been a wild hundreds. He’s also the editor on the breakbeat poets anthology. He’s got plays. Yeah, he’s could you could go to Colorado and you could be a student. There’s many ways you can also just find them on social media. But if you are gonna message him, you have one week to do it. Otherwise, you’re cut off.

Nate Marshall 1:07:30
Just message me about like other things. Chicago White Sox.

Traci Thomas 1:07:36
Yes, don’t do that. But Baseball, baseball will have started by the time this airs. So go Giants. Everyone else. We will see you in The Stacks. Alright, y’all, that does it for us this week. Thank you for listening. And thank you so much to Nate Marshall for being our guest. And now it is about you’ve been waiting for the announcement of our May book club pick. I am so excited. We are going to be reading a brand new book. It’s called shine bright, a very personal history of black women and pop. It’s by Danyel Smith. And I cannot wait for you all to find out who our guest is going to be for this conversation. Be sure to tune in next week to find out. If you love the show and want inside access to it, head to patreon.com/thestacks to join The Stacks Pack. Make sure you’re subscribed to The Stacks wherever you listen to your podcasts and if you’re listening through Apple Podcasts or Spotify, be sure to leave us a rating and a review. For more from The Stacks, follow us on social media at thestackspod on Instagram at thestackspod_ on Twitter and check out our website thestackspodcast.com. This episode of The Stacks was edited by Christian Dueñas, with production assistance from Lauren Tyree. Our graphic designer is Robin McCreight and our theme music is from Tagirijus. The Stacks is created and produced by me, Traci Thomas.

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