The Essential June Jordan

byJune Jordan, Jan Heller Levi (Edited by), Christoph Keller (Edited by), Jericho Brown (Introducer)

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For the poet and activist June Jordan, neither poetry nor activism could easily be disentangled from the other. Her storied career came to chronicle a living, breathing history of the struggles that defined the USA in the latter half of the twentieth century; and her poetry, accordingly, put its dazzling stylistic range to use in exploring issues of gender, race, immigration, representation and much else besides.

Here, above all, are sinuous, lashing and passionate lines, virtuosic in their musicality and always bearing the stamp of Jordan's irrepressible personality. Here are poems of suffusing light and profound anger: poems moved as much by political animus as by a deep love for the observation of human life in all its foibles, eccentricities, strengths and weaknesses.

With a foreword by Pulitzer Prize winner Jericho Brown, The Essential June Jordan allows new readers to discover - and old fans to rediscover - the vital work of this endlessly surprising poet who, in the words of Adrienne Rich, believed that 'genuine, up-from-the-bottom revolution must include art, laughter, sensual pleasure, and the widest possible human referentiality.'

About June Jordan

June Jordan was born in Harlem in 1936 and was the author of ten books of poetry, seven collections of essays, two plays, a libretto, a novel, a memoir, five children’s books, and Poetry for the People: A Revolutionary Blueprint. As a professor at UC Berkeley, Jordan established Poetry for the People, a program to train student teachers to teach the power of poetry from a multicultural worldview. She was a regular columnist for The Progressive and her articles appeared in The Village Voice, The New York Times, Ms., Essence, and The Nation. She died of breast cancer in 2002.

Alexis Pauline Gumbs (editor) is the author of several books, including Survival Is a Promise: The Eternal Life of Audre Lorde winner of the Judy Grahn Prize and the Zora in non-fiction, and Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals, for which she won a Whiting Award. She has also been honored with the Windham Campbell Prize for her poetry, and two National Humanities Center Fellowships for her intellectual impact. She lives in Durham, North Carolina.

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