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Directed by Desire: The Collected Poems
“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.
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.
650 pages, Hardcover
First published October 1, 2005
103 people are currently reading
3581 people want to read
About the author
June Jordan
73 books449 followersJune Millicent Jordan (July 9, 1936 – June 14, 2002) was a Caribbean-American poet and activist.
Jordan received numerous honors and awards, including a 1969-70 Rockefeller grant for creative writing, a Yaddo Fellowship in 1979, a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship in 1982, and the Achievement Award for International Reporting from the National Association of Black Journalists in 1984. Jordan also won the Lila Wallace Reader's Digest Writers Award from 1995 to 1998 as well as the Ground Breakers-Dream Makers Award from The Woman's Foundation in 1994.
She was included in Who's Who in America from 1984 until her death. She received the Chancellor's Distinguished Lectureship from UC Berkeley and the PEN Center USA West Freedom to Write Award (1991).
(from Wikipedia)
Jordan received numerous honors and awards, including a 1969-70 Rockefeller grant for creative writing, a Yaddo Fellowship in 1979, a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship in 1982, and the Achievement Award for International Reporting from the National Association of Black Journalists in 1984. Jordan also won the Lila Wallace Reader's Digest Writers Award from 1995 to 1998 as well as the Ground Breakers-Dream Makers Award from The Woman's Foundation in 1994.
She was included in Who's Who in America from 1984 until her death. She received the Chancellor's Distinguished Lectureship from UC Berkeley and the PEN Center USA West Freedom to Write Award (1991).
(from Wikipedia)
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 47 reviews
November 12, 2018
A modern day Walt Whitman, but she is even better, how is it that I have never heard of this poet? Oh right, she is an Carribean-American woman of color who had nonconforming political views and used language in a different way, and was bisexual, so they buried her and her voice.
These poems were startling and abrasive and calm and uniting. I can’t even talk about them, they are that phenomenal.
What I can say is that she covers every single subject possible in the world, and veers from a colloquial, informal voice to writing poems for the UN and every single other subject in history: civil rights, slavery, the protracted war in Ireland, troubles in the middle east, troubles in Africa, rape in the US, Clarence Thomas, South Africa, suicide, gender, sexuality, the Newport Jazz Festival. Oh and camping and the redwoods. And more and more and more. I have never read a poet that combined a lifetime of life and aliveness like this. I cried at her voice and her power, and her witness to the most shameful times in our country’s history. They weren’t all easy to read but need to be read and shared and felt. I will return to this again and again, this was just the first reading.
________________________________________
from the preface: “Her poetic sensibility was kindred to Blake’s scrutiny of innocence and experience; to Whitman’s vision of sexual and social breadth; to Gwendolyn Brooks’s and Romare Bearden’s portrayals of ordinary black people’s lives; to James Baldwin’s expression of the bitter contradictions within the republic. Keeping vibrations of hope on the pulse through dispiriting times was part of the task she set herself. She wanted her readers, listeners, students to feel their own latent power— of the word, the deed, of their own beauty and intrinsic value; she wanted each of us to understand how isolation can leave us defenseless and paralyzed. She knew, and wrote about, the power of violence, of hate, but her real theme, which infused her style, was the need, the impulse, for relation. Her writing was above all dialogic:
"reaching for you whoever you are and are you ready?
I am a stranger learning to worship the strangers around me whoever you are whoever I may become."
These are poems full of specificity– people and places, facts, grocery lists, imaginary scenarios of social change, anecdotes, talk— that June Jordan voice, compelling, blandishing, outraged and outrageous, tender and relentless with the trust that her words matter, that someone is listening and ready for them.”
SUNFLOWER SONNET NUMBER TWO
“Supposing we could just go on and on as two
voracious in the days apart as well as when
we side by side (the many ways we do
that) well! I would consider then
perfection possible, or else worthwhile
to think about. Which is to say
I guess the costs of long term tend to pile up,
block and complicate, erase away
the accidental, temporary, near
thing/ pulsebeat promises one makes
because the chance, the easy new, is there
in front of you. But still, perfection takes
some sacrifice of falling stars for rare.
And there are stars, but none of you, to spare.”
POEM NUMBER TWO ON BELL’S THEOREM, OR THE NEW PHYSICALITY OF LONG DISTANCE LOVE
“There is no chance that we will fall apart
There is no chance
There are no parts. ”
Because cowards attack by committee and
others kill with bullets while some numb by
numbers bleeding the body and the language of a child
Who would behold the colorings of a cloud and
legislate its shadows legislate its shine?
Or confront a cataract of rain and seek
to interdict its speed and suffocate its sound?
Or disappear the trees behind a nomenclature
no one knows by heart? Or count the syllables
that invoke the mother of my tongue?
Or say the game goes the way of the wind
And the wind blows the way of the ones who make and break the rules?
............... because because because
as far as I can tell
less than a thousand children
playing in the garden of a thousand
flowers means the broken neck of birds
I commit my body and my language…”
“These poems they are things that I do
in the dark reaching for you whoever
you are and are you ready?
These words they are stones in the water running away
These skeletal lines they are desperate arms for my longing and love.
I am a stranger learning to worship the strangers around me whoever you are
whoever I may become.”
Who Look at Me
Who would paint a people black or white?
For my own I have held where nothing showed me how
where finally I left alone to trace another destination
A white stare splits the air by blindness on the subway in department stores The Elevator (that unswerving ride where man ignores the brother by his side) A white stare splits obliterates the nerve-wrung wrist from work the breaking ankle or the turning glory of a spine
Is that how we look to you a partial nothing clearly real?
I am impossible to explain remote from old and new interpretations and yet not exactly
look black sailors on the light green sea the sky keeps blue the wind blows high and hard at night for anyhow anywhere new
look close and see me black man mouth for breathing (North and South) A MAN
I am black alive and looking back at you.
sometimes you have to dance like spelling the word joyless
Sometimes America the shamescape
knock-rock territory losing shape
the Southern earth like blood rolls
valleys cold gigantic weeping willow
flood that lunatic that lovely land that
graveyard growing trees remark
where men another black man
died he died again he died
When I or Else when I or else when you and I
or we deliberate I lose I cannot choose
if you if we then near or where unless I stand as loser
of that losing possibility that something
that I have or always want more
than much more at least
to have as less and yes directed by desire
On the Twenty-fifth Anniversary of the United Nations: 1970
“1 Of the world so beautiful the men and women
easy like the waters interchange and changing
make for change for children
An ordinary struggle through the day ignores
the natural tide below the waking crust
the one and simple earth before the breaking
of the waters
birth or separation from an early
urgent trust a solid continental
walkland for the one and simple walking life
And yet we do go on…”
Excerpts from a Verse Diary of Somebody Trying to Get into Gear
“for weeks I have been wanting to write this poem
that would muffle my life with the horoscope of flowers
that would join with rivers rushing along
that would bolt and break up
sentences midbolt
and break
impressively
like mid- air somersaults
from high- wire freedom
eyes can scarcely capture
to enrapture
whirling words and
abstract dervishes
asplash
in gutland reappraisal
of the light we barely share
because for weeks I have been wanting
to make my move (as the saying goes)..”
“I find my way by following your spine
Your heart indivisible from my real wish
we compelled the moon into the evening when you said,
“No, I will not let go of your hand.”
Now I am diving for a tide to take me everywhere
Below the soft Pacific spoils a purple girdling of the globe impregnable.”
“The morning on the mountains where the mist
diffuses
down into the depths of the leaves
of the ash and oak trees
trickling toward the complexion of the whole lake
cold
even though the overlooking sky
so solemnly vermilion sub-divides/
the seething stripes as soft
as sweet as the opening
of your mouth.”
“A family tremulous but fortified by turnips/okra/handpicked
like the lilies filled to the very living full
one solid gospel (sanctified)
one gospel (peace)
one full Black lily luminescent in a homemade field of love”
Place to Stand
“The forest dwindling narrow and irregular
to darken out the starlight on the ground
where needle shadows signify the moon
a harsh a horizontal blank that lays the land
implicit to the movement of your body is the moon
You’d think I was lying to you if
I described precisely how implicit to
the feeling of your lips are
luminous announcements of more mystery
than Arizona
more than just the imperturbable convictions
of the cow headfirst into a philosophy
and so sexy chewing up the grass.”
March Song
“Snow knuckles melted to pearls of black water
Face like a landslide of stars in the dark
Icicles plunging to waken the grave
Tree berries purple and bitten by birds
Curves of horizon squeeze on the sky
Telephone wires glide down the moon
Outlines of space later”
“…pieces of land with names like Beirut
where the game is to tear up the whole
Hemisphere into pieces of children and patches of sand
Asleep on a pillow the two of us whisper
we know about apples and hot bread and honey
Hunting for safety and eager for peace
We follow the leaders who chew up the land with names like
Beirut where the game is to tear up the whole
Hemisphere into pieces of children and patches of sand
I’m standing in place I’m holding your hand and
pieces of children on patches of sand”
Bridget Song #1
“Late in the day and near a growing
edge of redwood trees and following
a solitary trail I saw you/fern ravine
nirvana passing by but then you
changed direction and came back
to walk with me and I will never be the same
Before you knew my name I knew
nobody treads the earth as close
as light as you
And I am turned around
because the ceremony of your movement
slides along the shadow of a shining sound”
“I WANTED NOBODY ROLL BACK THE TREES! I WANTED NOBODY TAKE AWAY DAYBREAK! I WANTED NOBODY FREEZE ALL THE PEOPLE ON THEIR KNEES! I WANTED YOU I WANTED YOUR KISS ON THE SKIN OF MY SOUL AND NOW YOU SAY YOU LOVE ME…”
These poems were startling and abrasive and calm and uniting. I can’t even talk about them, they are that phenomenal.
What I can say is that she covers every single subject possible in the world, and veers from a colloquial, informal voice to writing poems for the UN and every single other subject in history: civil rights, slavery, the protracted war in Ireland, troubles in the middle east, troubles in Africa, rape in the US, Clarence Thomas, South Africa, suicide, gender, sexuality, the Newport Jazz Festival. Oh and camping and the redwoods. And more and more and more. I have never read a poet that combined a lifetime of life and aliveness like this. I cried at her voice and her power, and her witness to the most shameful times in our country’s history. They weren’t all easy to read but need to be read and shared and felt. I will return to this again and again, this was just the first reading.
________________________________________
from the preface: “Her poetic sensibility was kindred to Blake’s scrutiny of innocence and experience; to Whitman’s vision of sexual and social breadth; to Gwendolyn Brooks’s and Romare Bearden’s portrayals of ordinary black people’s lives; to James Baldwin’s expression of the bitter contradictions within the republic. Keeping vibrations of hope on the pulse through dispiriting times was part of the task she set herself. She wanted her readers, listeners, students to feel their own latent power— of the word, the deed, of their own beauty and intrinsic value; she wanted each of us to understand how isolation can leave us defenseless and paralyzed. She knew, and wrote about, the power of violence, of hate, but her real theme, which infused her style, was the need, the impulse, for relation. Her writing was above all dialogic:
"reaching for you whoever you are and are you ready?
I am a stranger learning to worship the strangers around me whoever you are whoever I may become."
These are poems full of specificity– people and places, facts, grocery lists, imaginary scenarios of social change, anecdotes, talk— that June Jordan voice, compelling, blandishing, outraged and outrageous, tender and relentless with the trust that her words matter, that someone is listening and ready for them.”
SUNFLOWER SONNET NUMBER TWO
“Supposing we could just go on and on as two
voracious in the days apart as well as when
we side by side (the many ways we do
that) well! I would consider then
perfection possible, or else worthwhile
to think about. Which is to say
I guess the costs of long term tend to pile up,
block and complicate, erase away
the accidental, temporary, near
thing/ pulsebeat promises one makes
because the chance, the easy new, is there
in front of you. But still, perfection takes
some sacrifice of falling stars for rare.
And there are stars, but none of you, to spare.”
POEM NUMBER TWO ON BELL’S THEOREM, OR THE NEW PHYSICALITY OF LONG DISTANCE LOVE
“There is no chance that we will fall apart
There is no chance
There are no parts. ”
Because cowards attack by committee and
others kill with bullets while some numb by
numbers bleeding the body and the language of a child
Who would behold the colorings of a cloud and
legislate its shadows legislate its shine?
Or confront a cataract of rain and seek
to interdict its speed and suffocate its sound?
Or disappear the trees behind a nomenclature
no one knows by heart? Or count the syllables
that invoke the mother of my tongue?
Or say the game goes the way of the wind
And the wind blows the way of the ones who make and break the rules?
............... because because because
as far as I can tell
less than a thousand children
playing in the garden of a thousand
flowers means the broken neck of birds
I commit my body and my language…”
“These poems they are things that I do
in the dark reaching for you whoever
you are and are you ready?
These words they are stones in the water running away
These skeletal lines they are desperate arms for my longing and love.
I am a stranger learning to worship the strangers around me whoever you are
whoever I may become.”
Who Look at Me
Who would paint a people black or white?
For my own I have held where nothing showed me how
where finally I left alone to trace another destination
A white stare splits the air by blindness on the subway in department stores The Elevator (that unswerving ride where man ignores the brother by his side) A white stare splits obliterates the nerve-wrung wrist from work the breaking ankle or the turning glory of a spine
Is that how we look to you a partial nothing clearly real?
I am impossible to explain remote from old and new interpretations and yet not exactly
look black sailors on the light green sea the sky keeps blue the wind blows high and hard at night for anyhow anywhere new
look close and see me black man mouth for breathing (North and South) A MAN
I am black alive and looking back at you.
sometimes you have to dance like spelling the word joyless
Sometimes America the shamescape
knock-rock territory losing shape
the Southern earth like blood rolls
valleys cold gigantic weeping willow
flood that lunatic that lovely land that
graveyard growing trees remark
where men another black man
died he died again he died
When I or Else when I or else when you and I
or we deliberate I lose I cannot choose
if you if we then near or where unless I stand as loser
of that losing possibility that something
that I have or always want more
than much more at least
to have as less and yes directed by desire
On the Twenty-fifth Anniversary of the United Nations: 1970
“1 Of the world so beautiful the men and women
easy like the waters interchange and changing
make for change for children
An ordinary struggle through the day ignores
the natural tide below the waking crust
the one and simple earth before the breaking
of the waters
birth or separation from an early
urgent trust a solid continental
walkland for the one and simple walking life
And yet we do go on…”
Excerpts from a Verse Diary of Somebody Trying to Get into Gear
“for weeks I have been wanting to write this poem
that would muffle my life with the horoscope of flowers
that would join with rivers rushing along
that would bolt and break up
sentences midbolt
and break
impressively
like mid- air somersaults
from high- wire freedom
eyes can scarcely capture
to enrapture
whirling words and
abstract dervishes
asplash
in gutland reappraisal
of the light we barely share
because for weeks I have been wanting
to make my move (as the saying goes)..”
“I find my way by following your spine
Your heart indivisible from my real wish
we compelled the moon into the evening when you said,
“No, I will not let go of your hand.”
Now I am diving for a tide to take me everywhere
Below the soft Pacific spoils a purple girdling of the globe impregnable.”
“The morning on the mountains where the mist
diffuses
down into the depths of the leaves
of the ash and oak trees
trickling toward the complexion of the whole lake
cold
even though the overlooking sky
so solemnly vermilion sub-divides/
the seething stripes as soft
as sweet as the opening
of your mouth.”
“A family tremulous but fortified by turnips/okra/handpicked
like the lilies filled to the very living full
one solid gospel (sanctified)
one gospel (peace)
one full Black lily luminescent in a homemade field of love”
Place to Stand
“The forest dwindling narrow and irregular
to darken out the starlight on the ground
where needle shadows signify the moon
a harsh a horizontal blank that lays the land
implicit to the movement of your body is the moon
You’d think I was lying to you if
I described precisely how implicit to
the feeling of your lips are
luminous announcements of more mystery
than Arizona
more than just the imperturbable convictions
of the cow headfirst into a philosophy
and so sexy chewing up the grass.”
March Song
“Snow knuckles melted to pearls of black water
Face like a landslide of stars in the dark
Icicles plunging to waken the grave
Tree berries purple and bitten by birds
Curves of horizon squeeze on the sky
Telephone wires glide down the moon
Outlines of space later”
“…pieces of land with names like Beirut
where the game is to tear up the whole
Hemisphere into pieces of children and patches of sand
Asleep on a pillow the two of us whisper
we know about apples and hot bread and honey
Hunting for safety and eager for peace
We follow the leaders who chew up the land with names like
Beirut where the game is to tear up the whole
Hemisphere into pieces of children and patches of sand
I’m standing in place I’m holding your hand and
pieces of children on patches of sand”
Bridget Song #1
“Late in the day and near a growing
edge of redwood trees and following
a solitary trail I saw you/fern ravine
nirvana passing by but then you
changed direction and came back
to walk with me and I will never be the same
Before you knew my name I knew
nobody treads the earth as close
as light as you
And I am turned around
because the ceremony of your movement
slides along the shadow of a shining sound”
“I WANTED NOBODY ROLL BACK THE TREES! I WANTED NOBODY TAKE AWAY DAYBREAK! I WANTED NOBODY FREEZE ALL THE PEOPLE ON THEIR KNEES! I WANTED YOU I WANTED YOUR KISS ON THE SKIN OF MY SOUL AND NOW YOU SAY YOU LOVE ME…”
December 15, 2007
A Although it took me several months to read this (it was my bedtime book, in between other books), this book of collected poems of June Jordan is phenomenal. She is an amazing poet I love and her imagery is rooted in race, gender, class, and is just brilliant.
August 16, 2009
One of the three hundred and seventeen reasons I'm hooked on June Jordan:
Buzz off: Romantic Poem #1
After pecking and pecking and pecking after
Crumbs
The bird
(sometimes soon enough)
remembers how to fly
away
Read
February 12, 2024love june jordan so much
April 28, 2010
A student of mine bought this book for me after they had completed projects on black history month, but the twist was the person of interest could not be an outwardly famous or well-known African-Americans, I chose women writers and activists etc. It was really an exciting time for me helping them conduct research...this book was my gift.
October 26, 2015
June Jordan has such a unique and powerful voice - I couldn't get enough of her! She has a stunning way of pulling together unique rhythms, and often those rhythms are a driving force behind the words. I can't help but admire her work!
May 13, 2016
A HOSTIA.
Se non lestes aínda a June Jordan -ata o seu nome é aliterado!-, estades tardando. Muller, negra, non hetero, activista...: ten plumas pa dar e tomar. E a súa poesía é un FUCK YEAH continuo.
En serio, lédea, lédea, lédea, lédea...
Se non lestes aínda a June Jordan -ata o seu nome é aliterado!-, estades tardando. Muller, negra, non hetero, activista...: ten plumas pa dar e tomar. E a súa poesía é un FUCK YEAH continuo.
En serio, lédea, lédea, lédea, lédea...
March 27, 2016
This. Is. Inspiring. Loveable. Book. Thanks. June. From. Doris.
April 7, 2019
This is a massive volume, with more than 600 poems. I liked the ones presenting a strong black feminist perspective on rape and racism. There are lots of others using an indirect esoteric language that did not appeal to me but if you like wordplay for the sound, you might find those enjoyable.
I did not realize June Jordan wrote so much poetry and I am glad it was compiled in this anthology. The large anthology of poems by Lucille Clifton is another book by a black feminist who demonstrates more than one style, which is interesting to compare to June Jordan. Clifton has a softer style; Jordan is harder, both good in different ways...
I did not realize June Jordan wrote so much poetry and I am glad it was compiled in this anthology. The large anthology of poems by Lucille Clifton is another book by a black feminist who demonstrates more than one style, which is interesting to compare to June Jordan. Clifton has a softer style; Jordan is harder, both good in different ways...
March 16, 2008
I heart June Jordan. She's probably my biggest influence as a poet. This collection is a much-needed compilation of her work over the years, and includes some previously unpublished writing. I heart her, and I heart this book.
November 21, 2020
Perhaps if more upper-middle class & rich white women were taught to love June Jordan as much as they were taught to love Emily Dickinson, more upper-middle class & rich white women would vote democrat.
May 2, 2007
June Jordan is an amazingly inspiring poet activist and this book is definitely a rich collection have.
June 15, 2007
nearly everything ive learned about writing and loving i have learned from the works of June Jordan. this collection should be on every bookshelf, in every home, everywhere.
May 12, 2008
this is like the best book ever. lane gave it to me
as a spontaneous gift. i am savoring every bit of it.
as a spontaneous gift. i am savoring every bit of it.
January 17, 2008
i don't really like most poetry but I love this!
Currently reading
January 24, 2008I'm slowly making my way through, and have been for about a year as I read other books. I'm trying to give each poem the time it deserves.
March 26, 2011
her collected poems! great poems are abundant. some of the best are included. Apologies to the People of Lebanon, On New Year's Eve, Poem about my Rights!
February 6, 2014
I bought this book on Kindle for $10. Wow! What a deal! Jordan's poetry is searing! Once I begin, it is difficult for me to tear myself away. She truly was "directed by desire."
January 26, 2021
This book is filled with June Jordan jewels. I loved it so much I brought a copy for myself.
January 2, 2022
Part of the Zora Canon, the 100 best books by Black women
It is a crime that it took me this long to read (or even hear) of June Jordan. I only did because this book is part of my quest to read all of the Zora Canon. Jordan's poems are amazing. She is amazing. I love this collection. I even loved her long poems, when usually I hate any poem that extends past a page. I love her raging political poems and her soft love poems and her soft political poems and her raging love ones. I can't fit every poem I love into this review, so here are a number of snippets to hopefully convince you dear reader to read this collection:
To begin is no more agony
than opening your hand
-from “Who Look at Me”
And yet we do go on.
-from On the Twenty-fifth Anniversary of the United Nations: 1970
we are somewhere wounded by the wind
-from “Roman Poem Number Five”
you
could never believe the quiet
your arms
make true around me
-from “On Your Love”
all things are dear
that disappear
-from “On New Year’s Eve”
I plan to blossom bloody on an afternoon
-from “I Must Become a Menace to My Enemies”
Maybe when I wake up in the middle of the night
I should go downstairs
dump the refrigerator contents on the floor
and stand there in the middle of the spilled milk
and the wasted butter spread beneath my dirty feet
writing poems
writing poems
maybe I just need to love myself myself and
anyway
I’m working on it.
-from “Free Flight”
We survive our love
because we go on
loving
-from “Grand Army Plaza”
But everyone needs a home
so at least you have someplace to leave
-from “Notes towards Home”
I understand the comfortable temptations of the dead:
I turn my back against the grave
and kiss again the risk of what I have
instead
-from “Poem at the Midnight of my Life”
Then how should I
subsist
without the benediction of our bodies
intertwined
or why?
-from “12:01 A.M.”
Who would behold the colorings of a cloud
and legislate its shadows
legislate its shine?
-from “Poem of Commitment”
Holding to all pain
I remain
Faithful to the one
Who let pain go
-from “The End of Kindness: Poem for Dr. Elizabeth Ann Karlin”
How many hours before we agree that loving ourselves
does not require our hatred of somebody else?
-from “A Couple of Questions”
I am a stranger
learning to worship the strangers
around me
whoever you are
whoever I may become
-from "These poems"
It is a crime that it took me this long to read (or even hear) of June Jordan. I only did because this book is part of my quest to read all of the Zora Canon. Jordan's poems are amazing. She is amazing. I love this collection. I even loved her long poems, when usually I hate any poem that extends past a page. I love her raging political poems and her soft love poems and her soft political poems and her raging love ones. I can't fit every poem I love into this review, so here are a number of snippets to hopefully convince you dear reader to read this collection:
To begin is no more agony
than opening your hand
-from “Who Look at Me”
And yet we do go on.
-from On the Twenty-fifth Anniversary of the United Nations: 1970
we are somewhere wounded by the wind
-from “Roman Poem Number Five”
you
could never believe the quiet
your arms
make true around me
-from “On Your Love”
all things are dear
that disappear
-from “On New Year’s Eve”
I plan to blossom bloody on an afternoon
-from “I Must Become a Menace to My Enemies”
Maybe when I wake up in the middle of the night
I should go downstairs
dump the refrigerator contents on the floor
and stand there in the middle of the spilled milk
and the wasted butter spread beneath my dirty feet
writing poems
writing poems
maybe I just need to love myself myself and
anyway
I’m working on it.
-from “Free Flight”
We survive our love
because we go on
loving
-from “Grand Army Plaza”
But everyone needs a home
so at least you have someplace to leave
-from “Notes towards Home”
I understand the comfortable temptations of the dead:
I turn my back against the grave
and kiss again the risk of what I have
instead
-from “Poem at the Midnight of my Life”
Then how should I
subsist
without the benediction of our bodies
intertwined
or why?
-from “12:01 A.M.”
Who would behold the colorings of a cloud
and legislate its shadows
legislate its shine?
-from “Poem of Commitment”
Holding to all pain
I remain
Faithful to the one
Who let pain go
-from “The End of Kindness: Poem for Dr. Elizabeth Ann Karlin”
How many hours before we agree that loving ourselves
does not require our hatred of somebody else?
-from “A Couple of Questions”
I am a stranger
learning to worship the strangers
around me
whoever you are
whoever I may become
-from "These poems"
July 16, 2022
Jordan’s poetry reflects her belief in addressing the concerns of audiences of color, exploring black life, creating better living conditions for black families, and enhancing black culture. her poetry enables her to express her political ideas while making art. she wrote angry poems concerning political and personal injustices, funny poems, and nature poems. June fought the “good fight” against this hatred; she did not succumb to it, or lose sight of the sweetness and PASSION in the world and between people.
My favorite chapter and poem was:
Chapter: Passion 1977-1980
Dedicated to everybody scared as I used to be
Poem toward the Bottom Line:
Then this is the truth: That we began here
where no road existed even
as a dream: where staggered scream and grief inside
the howling air where hunched against
the feeling and the sounds of beast we moved
the left and then the right leg: stilted terminals
against infinity against amorphous omnivores
against the frozen vertigo of all
position: there we moved against
the hungering for heat for ease we moved
as now we move against each
other unpredictable around the corner
of this sweet occasion. Or as now the earth
assumes the skeletal that just the snow that just
the body of your trusting me can capture
tenderly enough.
This poem interpret: I love this poem. While I was reading this poem I imagined it like being in a maze, the thought of getting lost not just in the maze but emotionally inside where you break down and get frustrated in finding a way out. But once you get to the bottom line, find the finish line you feel a wave of tenderness from the pain you endured but also a sense of relief. That's a strong feeling, that's passion.
I also wrote my own poem based on her poem:
Poem above the Top Line:
Clouds were non-existent
even throughout our thoughts,
where connected dots and shortcuts
outside this caged-like box
were out of reach
against the feeling of escaping
and safety of release.
We stretched the left
and then the right arm,
a hungering for control
for no pain to predict
as the cage consumes
our bones that just our hands
that just our bodies of them snapping
could break us free.
I love June Jordan's work, this book will forever be kept!
My favorite chapter and poem was:
Chapter: Passion 1977-1980
Dedicated to everybody scared as I used to be
Poem toward the Bottom Line:
Then this is the truth: That we began here
where no road existed even
as a dream: where staggered scream and grief inside
the howling air where hunched against
the feeling and the sounds of beast we moved
the left and then the right leg: stilted terminals
against infinity against amorphous omnivores
against the frozen vertigo of all
position: there we moved against
the hungering for heat for ease we moved
as now we move against each
other unpredictable around the corner
of this sweet occasion. Or as now the earth
assumes the skeletal that just the snow that just
the body of your trusting me can capture
tenderly enough.
This poem interpret: I love this poem. While I was reading this poem I imagined it like being in a maze, the thought of getting lost not just in the maze but emotionally inside where you break down and get frustrated in finding a way out. But once you get to the bottom line, find the finish line you feel a wave of tenderness from the pain you endured but also a sense of relief. That's a strong feeling, that's passion.
I also wrote my own poem based on her poem:
Poem above the Top Line:
Clouds were non-existent
even throughout our thoughts,
where connected dots and shortcuts
outside this caged-like box
were out of reach
against the feeling of escaping
and safety of release.
We stretched the left
and then the right arm,
a hungering for control
for no pain to predict
as the cage consumes
our bones that just our hands
that just our bodies of them snapping
could break us free.
I love June Jordan's work, this book will forever be kept!
May 12, 2020
More than anything, this rating reflects the fact that Jordan's collection here is 630 pages of poetry. There are some absolutely phenomenal poems here, and I picked up the collection after reading about Solmaz Sharif's praise for Jordan's aesthetic, but the rating would have been higher had it been pared down more. That said, "I Must Become a Menace to My Enemies," "Moving toward Home," and several others retain their power here.
September 7, 2021
This is a great collection of June Jordan’s poems that showcases her gift for clear-eyed criticism of injustice all over the globe as well as her mastery of stunningly intimate poems about the vast scope of love, observing the world around/within you, and how to contemplate mortality.
March 28, 2018
she was a PISTOL
July 19, 2018
Beautiful.
August 1, 2020
I had only recently heard of this poet. She has so much to say about injustice and political situations. I want to read more of her work.
Read
December 21, 2020Not finished. I took a break from poetry.
January 27, 2021
This history is totally addictive.
February 13, 2021
June Jordan creó una poética feminista política deslumbrante, que continúa vigente en las poetas jóvenes.
November 6, 2021
Heartbreaking, rage-filled, passionate, savagely funny, brilliant.
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