About June
 "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."
--Alice Walker "Whatever her theme or mode, June Jordan continually delineates the conditions of survival—of the body, and mind, and the heart." --Adrienne Rich "In political journalism that cuts like razors, in essays that blast the darkness of confusion with relentless light; in poetry that looks as closely into lilac buds as into death’s mouth….she has comforted, explained, described, wrestled with, taught and made us laugh out loud before we wept…I am talking about a span of forty years of tireless activism coupled with and fueled by flawless art." --Toni Morrison "June Jordan’s poetry embraces a half-century in which she dwelt as poet, intellectual, and activist: also as teacher, observer, and recorder. In a sense unusual among twentieth-century poets of the United States, she believed in and lived the urgency of the word—along with action—to resist abuses of power and violations of dignity in—and beyond—her country." --Adrienne Rich, from her foreword to Directed by Desire: The Collected Poems of June Jordan, 2005 For more extensive biographical information see Valerie Kinloch's June Jordan: Her Life and Letters, published by Praeger Publishers (2006), as well as the critical anthology Still Seeking an Attitude: Critical Reflections on the Work of June Jordan, edited by Valerie Kinloch and Margret Grebowicz (2005). |