June Jordan

For Haruko Little moves on sight blinded by histories as trivial or expansive as the rain seducing light into a blurred excitement Then she opens all of one eye as accurate as longing as two hands beholden to the hunger of green leaves and rinsing them back into regular breath she who sees she frees each of these beggarly events cleansing them of dust and other death Poem about Process And Progress For Haruko Hey Baby you betta hurry it up! Because since you went totally off I seen a full moon I seen a half moon I seen a quarter moon I seen no moon whatsoever! I seen a equinox I seen a solstice I seen Mars and Venus on a line I seen a mess a fickle stars and lately I seen this new kind a luva on an' off the telephone who like to talk to me all the time real nice Resolution # 1,003 I will love who loves me I will love as much as I am loved I will hate who hates me I will feel nothing for everyone oblivious to me I will stay indifferent to indifference I will live hostile to hostility I will make myself a passionate and eager lover In response to passionate and eager love I will be nobody's fool Foreword WHAT IS THIS thing called love, in the poems of June Jordan, artist, teacher, social critic, visionary of human solidarity? First of all, it's a motive; the power Che Guevara was trying to invoke in his much-quoted assertion: "At the risk of appearing ridiculous . . . the true revolutionary is moved by great feelings of love." I think also of Paul Nizan: "You think you are innocent if you say, 'I love this woman and I want to act in accordance with my love,' but you are beginning the revolution. . . . You will be driven back: to claim the right to a human act is to attack the forces responsible for all the misery in the world." Neither of them, admittedly, was claiming the love of a woman for women, the love of a man for men, as revolutionary, as a human act. But the motive is "directed by desire" in Jordan

Love Poems

Haruko

A posthumous collection of essays, noted for its "love of language" and "expression of social identity" (Reamy Jansen, "San Francisco Chronicle") "Some of Us Did Not Die" brings together a rich sampling of the late poet's prose writings.

New and Selected Essays

Some of Us Did Not Die

The June Jordan Literary Estate Trust

The Essential June Jordan

“Jordan . . . is among the bravest of us, the most outraged. She feels for all. She is the universal poet.”—Alice Walker “Always urgent, inspiring, and demanding, Jordan's work has left its indelible mark everywhere from Essence to The Norton Anthology of Poetry, and from theater stages to the floors of the United Nations and the United States Congress.”—BOMB Directed by Desire is the definitive overview of the poetry of June Jordan, considered one of the most lyrically gifted poets of the late twentieth century. Directed by Desire gathers the finest work from Jordan's 10 volumes, as well as 70 new, never-before-published poems that she wrote while dying of breast cancer. Throughout over 600 pages readers will find intimate lyricism, elegance, fury, meditative solos, and dazzling vernacular riffs. As Adrienne Rich writes in her introduction, June Jordan “wanted her readers, listeners, students, to feel their own latent power—of the word, the deed, of their own beauty and intrinsic value. . . . She believed, and nourished the belief, that genuine, up-from-the-bottom revolution must include art, laughter, sensual pleasure, and the widest possible human referentiality.” From These Poems These poems they are things that I do in the dark reaching for you whoever you are and are you ready? June Jordan taught at the University of California Berkeley for many years and founded Poetry for the People. Her 28 books include poetry, essays, fiction, and children's books. She was a regular columnist for The Progressive and a prolific writer whose articles appeared in The Village Voice, The New York Times, Ms. Magazine, and The Nation. Her numerous awards include a PEN West Freedom to Write Award and a lifetime achievement award from the National Black Writers Conference. After her death from breast cancer in 2002, a school in the San Francisco School District was renamed in her honor.

The Collected Poems of June Jordan

Directed by Desire

Essays, letters, and speeches consider Black feminism, education, and the nature of poetry, as well as the problems of ghetto school systems, police violence, and radical riots

Civil Wars

Jericho Brown

Christoph Keller

Jan Heller Levi

In trailblazing poet, essayist, teacher and activist June Jordan's poems, love is a vision of revolutionary solidarity, crossing borders both emotional and literal with an outstretched hand. Haruko traces the faltering arc of a passionate love affair with another woman while Love Poems encompasses relationships with men and women, political resistance, the need for self-care in a demanding, uncaring world and apocalyptic visions of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius that destroyed Pompeii and Herculaneum. A contemporary of Alice Walker, Toni Morrison and Audre Lorde, June Jordan's spectacular poetry remains profoundly politically potent, lyrically inventive and breathtakingly romantic. First published in 1994, Haruko/ Love poems is a vitally important modern classic.

Haruko/Love Poems

Written with exceptional beauty throughout, Soldier stands and delivers an eloquent, heart-breaking, hilarious and hopeful, witness to the beginnings of a truly extraordinary, American life.

A Poet's Childhood

Soldier

Poems 1991 - 1997,Jordan makes us think of Akhmatova, of Neruda.,She is among the bravest of us, the most outraged.,She feels for all. She is the universal poet.,#NAME?,June Jordan is the most musically and lyrically,gifted poet of the late twentieth century.,#NAME'.

Poems, 1991-1997

Kissing God Goodbye

The only young adult book by June Jordan is rediscovered and introduced by best-selling author Sapphire.

His Own Where

Selected Poetry

Things That I Do in the Dark

After decades out of print, Passion—one of June Jordan’s most important collections—has returned to readers. Originally entitled, passion: new poems, 1977-1980, this volume holds key works including “Poem About My Rights,” “Poem About Police Violence,” “Free Flight,” and an essay by the poet, “For the Sake of the People’s Poetry: Walt Whitman and the Rest of Us.” June Jordan was a fierce advocate for the safety and humanity of women and Black people, and for the freedom of all people—and Barack Obama made a line from this book famous: “We are the ones we have been waiting for.” With love and humor, via lyrics and rants, she calls for nothing less than radical compassion. This new edition includes a foreword by Nicole Sealey.

Passion

Poems deal with racism, oppression, justice, ecology, poverty, and life in modern American

New and Selected Poems

Naming Our Destiny

Poems explore subjects such as political conditions in the United States, the Nicaraguan civil war, and Black culture

New Poems

Living Room

The award-winning poet explores, with her characteristic fierce honesty, the oppression of women and Blacks, street violence, lovemaking, and the struggle for identity

New Poems, 1977-1980

Political Essays

Affirmative Acts

A noted scholar discusses such topics as the American myths of race and class, the link between poetry and politics, the poverty of American education, and African-American literature by women

African-American Notes on the State of the Union

Technical Difficulties

Moving Towards Home

Things that I Do in the Dark

A collection of essays covering civil rights and social conditions of African Americans

June Jordan

Books

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