Etymology Of Hoochie Mama - AGNI Online

Lia Purpura, Parasol Mushroom (detail), featured in AGNI 102

Etymology of Hoochie Mama Poetry from AGNI 87 by Cortney Lamar Charleston

I’m new to his neighborhood. He is equallynew to mine—the two, divided by a dotted linelike always, by colors and the casual violencethat implies, a parallel to the universe of blocks45 minutes away but not yet perverted by pistols.

And not yet a pound of dap between us either,because this is the first chill, boys on trial basis,a referee-striped sight with he and me sitting sideby side, a whistle in my head ready to blow foulif need be as we’re watching TV, the videotapeI thieved from the parental collection, a rated-Rflick and fairly recent favorite of mine, my mindinfatuated, I guess, by the familiarity of it all, itsportrayal of an African-American family, Chicago.Lead actresses: Long, Nia. Williams, Vanessa. Fox,Vivica A., her middle initial a strong component ofhis query to me, not one full scene into the movie—

What is A hoochie mama? What does that mean?He puzzles me with a pure white expression, edgingreal hard on his pronunciation, and pronunciation,suddenly, becomes a boulder on my young brainas I try to translate English to English, as I tell him:

Uhhhh, it means she’s not a patient woman. It meansshe drives above the speed limit, a bit “fast.” It meansshe’s a flash of legs and thighs and breasts. It meansshe’s a bird, she’s free, but maybe not cheap, do youget what I’m saying? It means there’s something to begotten, get it? It means get it. It means coochie. It meanscooing. Cookie. Nookie. It means it’s time for you to goback home for dinner. It means it’s a mean thing to say.It means you better not say it, but don’t know no better.It means I do. It means I’m grown, grew up too fast.

xxxxAs we dark ones tend to do.xxxxxxxxxAs we have to. Do.

Published: Apr 15 2018

Cortney Lamar Charleston

Cortney Lamar Charleston is the author of Telepathologies, selected by D. A. Powell for the 2016 Saturnalia Books Poetry Prize, and of Doppelgangbanger,forthcoming in 2020 from Haymarket Books. A recipient of fellowships from Cave Canem, The Conversation Literary Festival, and the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, he was awarded a 2017 Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship by the Poetry Foundation. His poems have appeared in Poetry, New England Review, Gulf Coast, AGNI, River Styx, and elsewhere. Winner of a Pushcart Prize, he serves as a poetry editor ofThe Rumpus and on the editorial board of Alice James Books. (updated 9/2019)

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