June Jordan_Her Life and Letters

by Valerie Kinloch

  Even though her writing spans poetry, nonfiction, children’s and young-adult literature, and drama, it is important to recognize that fixed labels will never contain this poet, a woman of charm and laughter who fell in love with people just as easily as she fell in love with words: eagerly, willingly, and with great excitement. Her writings, teachings, activist efforts, and her calls for universal love transcend all the limiting boundaries that oftentimes place people, especially black women, into static roles. As much as Jordan was a poet, she was also a professor, a lover, and a mother who fully embraced efforts toward universal justice. And yet, she was more than these things combined. Her writing serves as proof of the magnificence of a woman who could not abandon the journey toward human freedom. The problematic nature of naming Jordan’s experiences suggests the difficulty of writing her biography. To accomplish this type of work, one needs to begin with Jordan’s personal, autobiographical writings, for they hold the key to her familial interactions, her interracial marriage,

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  her early teaching positions, and the ending of her political involvement, freedom struggle, soft yet strong voice, and fascinating life.

  June Jordan’s work reveals the splendors of her public personas as story-teller, poet, essayist, librettist, dramatist, journalist, and educator. It also demonstrates her more private personas: she was an only child, a single mother, a classically trained pianist, a passionate lover, and a candid friend. A writer of precision, power, and detail who would craft political manifestos against violence with the same fire that ignited her many love poems, Jordan has often been referred to as a “dissident poet,” a “people’s poet,” and a “universal poet.” These monikers find their roots in the literary tradition of Walt Whitman, the exceptional letter-writing style of Langston Hughes, the magnificence of Pablo Neruda, and the musicality of Beethoven. Jordan admired these prominent figures from whom she learned both the seriousness and truthfulness of honest, startling, lyrical, and painful writings. Her writing is, in fact, a brilliant compendium of stories that offers political commentaries on the difficulties of living, loving, and surviving in America as a raced and gendered person, the daughter of West Indian parents who immigrated to the United States during the “roaring” 1920s, a black mother, and one of the most published black American writers of the twentieth century.

  Jordan’s writing, illuminative of her life experiences as a child in New York City, a protégé of Fannie Lou Hamer, a participant in the Civil Rights Movement in the United States, and an activist who called herself a Palestinian, jumps off the page with an urgency that beckons its readers to gather, plan, mobilize, write, and act. The black woman who emerges from this writing is a skilled poet who refuses to be hindered by labels and acts of racism, but who insists on using words to search for freedom and justice for all people. This person, this June Jordan, this headstrong and outspoken poet, was a woman whose writing is politically savvy and unconventional in its brutal honesty. Her writing points to her bravery in asserting a public voice against injustices, from the violent acts perpetuated on black and Puerto Rican youth in New York City to the dangers of marginalizing black women in political movements. Jordan was, by any stretch of the imagination, an extraordinary writer.

  This unauthorized biography, then, is a glimpse into the life and literary contributions of June Jordan. While this work does not pose as a “critical biography,” it does provide a detailed treatment of Jordan’s various writings, her family encounters, teachings, and reachings beyond the confines of restrictive identity stereotypes to become a public, revolutionary artist. This work, supported by in depth studies of all of Jordan’s published writings and many in print and archived critical commentaries of her works, is the result of collected data from a number of significant sources: the Donnell Branch of the New York Public Library, the Schomburg Center for Research on Black Culture, the Library at Stanford University, the Houston Public Library, the Library at the University of Houston, and the archives at the Barnard College Library.

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  Introduction

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  Interviews and personal exchanges with Jordan’s first cousin, Valerie Orridge, and with author Julius Lester, poet E. Ethelbert Miller, musician Adrienne Torf, and countless activists, teachers, and students provide invaluable information on aspects of Jordan’s life and the value of her literature as they were influenced by her commitment to language and human life.

  As a “people’s poet,” June Jordan fought for justice with words and actions.

  Where did her strength come from? In what ways was her strength a result of her childhood experiences with an allegedly abusive father and a silent mother? What motivated the poet to marry a white man during the onset of the Civil Rights Movement in the United States? How are Jordan’s literary and political commitments to social change connected to her lifelong search for personal love, physical safety, sexual freedom, and quality education for others, especially women and children? In what ways did Jordan make use of Black English Vernacular, and how did her commitment to its form enrich the ways language is currently used and understood? Can Jordan’s life—from her childhood, involvement in New York City literary communities, participation in the Civil Rights Movement, and creation of Poetry for the People at the University of California, Berkeley—be brought into the spaces of public school classrooms? How did she come to define power and, at the same time, interrogate the power possessed by some and not others? In what ways does Jordan connect power, activism, leadership, and love?

  To answer these questions is to examine the changing circumstances of Jordan’s life—her father’s abuse, mother’s death, academic appointment as professor at several colleges and universities, international campaigns for justice, and prolific writing career. Revered by many social activists, political figures, writers and poets, professional associates, and personal friends, Jordan’s life and poetic works are marked by a unique brand of honesty. It is this honesty that June Jordan: Her Life and Letters attempts to capture and convey in its discussion of how Jordan used democratic language so as not to become a victim of language misuse and abuse. She knew of the consequences of linguistic and physical abuse, for her life was a daily battle with these realities. She was raped twice, yet this victimization did not stop her from declaring her love for women, men, and children. Her struggles, as articulated in this biography, fueled her life and work, making her an important American writer.

  In Chapter 1, “Soldier: A Poet’s Childhood,” I investigate Jordan’s early years as the only daughter of West Indian parents. I pay particular attention to the poet’s following lines:

  I wasn’t too happy about maybe having to choose

  between having brains and being pretty.

  I wasn’t too happy that maybe somebody else

  had already made that choice for me.1

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  Jordan was always unhappy with the status quo, and what is known of her childhood in Harlem and Brooklyn—particularly surrounding her documented love–fight–punish relationship with her parents—testifies to this fact.

  However, there were many moments when she was happy, including the time she spent with her father at the Harlem River Bridge; when she was in the company of her grandmother, Marie “Nanny” Taylor, who lived in East Orange, New Jersey; or when she would listen to stories told by her step-uncle, Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt. Such significant relationships connect with one another and reiterate significant points from Jordan’s memoir, Soldier: A Poet’s Childhood (2000). They also provide invaluable insight into what is known of Jordan’s intimate relationships with, and growing fondness for, the poetic writings of Paul Laurence Dunbar and Shakespeare—literary geniuses whom Jordan studied while under her father’s supervision. The chapter c
oncludes by highlighting how Jordan, as a young adult, happily embraced her freedom to choose by boldly making her own decisions. In 1953, she matriculated to Barnard College in New York City, where, two years later, she married Michael Meyer, a white student at Columbia College. After a short stay with Meyer in Chicago, Illinois, Jordan returned to New York City, reenrolled in Barnard, and became active in the college’s student literary publication, Focus, before ending her studies there. The significant events of her youth parallel her later life of activism, writing, and love.

  An analysis of not being “too happy about having to choose” and the events that defined Jordan’s childhood leads into Chapter 2, “Who Look at Me,” with a discussion of the birth of Jordan’s son, Christopher David Meyer, and her separation, and eventual divorce, from Michael Meyer. These encounters encouraged the poet to evaluate the personal and political implications of her role as mother, writer, freedom fighter, and activist at the brink of the U.S. Civil Rights Movement. Such reconsiderations occurred in the face of her divorce and her pursuit to establish a life of passion and fulfillment marked by the publication of her first poetic text, Who Look at Me (1969), and her first novel, His Own Where (1971). Her growing literary and political involvements reiterate the influence of her childhood, marriage, and divorce on her professional choices and literary accomplishments.

  Chapter 3, “New Days: Poems of Exile and Return,” delves into descriptions of the poet’s early jobs and teaching appointments by focusing on her burgeoning devotion to human life, civil liberties, and political rights. It is this devotion that shows itself in her art, freedom rides, and participation in civil rights movements. Starting in 1966, Jordan worked as a researcher and writer for the Technical Housing Department of Mobilization for Youth and as a poet-in-residence with Teachers & Writers Collaboration, both organizations located in New York City. Soon thereafter, she received teaching positions in English and composition at several universities, including the City University of New York, Sarah Lawrence College, and Yale University. This discussion leads into an investigation of Jordan as a serious literary and political public

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  figure who was awarded a prestigious National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Creative Writing (1982), and who went on to pen, among other works, Soulscript: Afro-American Poetry, Some Changes, New Days: Poems of Exile and Return, Things That I Do in the Dark: Selected Poetry, Passion: New Poems, and Living Room: New Poems 1980–1984.

  In Chapter 4, “Moving Towards Home: Political Essays,” I discuss how the work of the civil rights and black arts movements, and the philosophical teachings of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. influenced the direction Jordan would follow with her politics and art. She often questioned the black leadership of rights movements, exhibiting concern for the implied roles and responsibilities of women in movements. In addition to her interrogations of black leadership were her increasing public campaigns, rallies, and freedom rides for the rights of black people in politics and education. Jordan’s writings on such topics found a home on the pages of various New York-based magazines and periodicals. This chapter analyzes some of the sociopolitical tensions that surround race, gender, sexuality, and freedom, which led Jordan to confront the dynamics of being a poet and essayist, and an activist and educator concerned about global injustices and the coalitions needed to combat them.

  Jordan’s growth as a writer, activist, and educator parallels her focus on the lives of young people. In Chapter 5, “The Voice of the Children,” I address the poet’s texts for children and young adults and their concentration on the use of black English and black cultural forms, quality educational opportunities, the significance of safe spatial designs in urban communities, and the importance of young people in the fight for civil rights. A look at Jordan’s children’s and young-adult books, including The Voice of the Children (1968), His Own Where (1971), Fannie Lou Hamer (1972), Dry Victories (1972), New Life: New Room (1975), and Kimako’s Story (1981) demonstrates her attention to the lives, languages, and literacies of young people. Such themes were important to her teaching and activist efforts.

  Discussion of her writing for an audience of young people leads into the final two chapters of this book. Chapter 6, “Affirmative Acts: Political Essays,”

  explores Jordan’s professorship at the University of California, Berkeley, her creation of Poetry for the People Collective, and her sentiments concerning the role of the poet and the importance of quality, democratic forms of education.

  While at the University of California, Berkeley, Jordan published several popular essay and poetry collections— Technical Difficulties: African American Notes on the State of the Union (1992), Haruko/Love Poetry (1993), Kissing God Goodbye (1997), Affirmative Acts: Political Essays (1998), and, posthumously, Some of Us Did Not Die: New and Selected Essays of June Jordan (2003) and Directed by Desire: The Collected Poems of June Jordan (2005). Reflecting on her writings and teachings in California, this chapter responds to the following inquiries: In what ways do Jordan’s poetry, essays, and commentaries speak to the fundamental element of democratic education for students of color in public schools? How can the writer and her works be brought closer to the work

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  of secondary classes? What are the connections between the June Jordan Poetry for the People Collective and other writing initiatives, including Teachers & Writers Collaborative (NYC) and Writers-in-the-Schools (Houston, TX)?

  “Kissing God Goodbye,” the final chapter in the book, opens with a look at the journey Jordan began after being diagnosed with breast cancer and undergoing surgical procedures, and thereafter recommitting herself to life and love.

  In exploring this journey, I respond to the following concerns: How did Jordan confront her breast cancer, mastectomy, and cancer treatments? In what ways did she muster the energy to both battle cancer and fight for human justice through writing, teaching, and activism? How did her family, friends, and colleagues honor her life upon her death? What is the power of the written word and how does this power live on after years of struggle, even after death? In short, why did we love June Jordan and why should we remember her? This last chapter asks these questions in order to explore Jordan’s undying commitment—in the face of her eventual death—to human justice and the eradication of oppressive conditions for all people.

  Taken altogether, then, June Jordan: Her Life and Letters presents brief, but poignant, aspects of her extraordinary life, visionary power, and political writing. It is this life, and its poetic sensibility, that makes June Jordan an important political poet whose legacy must be studied and cherished.

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  Soldier: A Poet’s Childhood

  As a Black woman living with change and beset by continuing situations of peril, I am the same and I am different, now. For me, winning has become the point. I have known and I have seen too many people dead, absolutely dead and gone, to settle for resistance or struggle: I am working to win.1

  June Millicent Jordan, in life and in memory, proves that it is crucial to engage in fights for freedom and equality when groups of people are denied human rights, when political refugees are forbidden civil liberties, and when unjust conditions threaten the existence of any group of people, at any time, anywhere. Over the course of her life, June Jordan became known for her incessant drive to win, whether in the face of disagreement and alleged rage within her parents’ Bedford-Stuyvesant household in Brooklyn, New York; during the violent Harlem Riot of 1964; throughout battles for civil rights legislation in Southern states such as Mississippi; or against the United States’

  interference in the Palestinian peace process. Jordan’s visionary power and political writings indicate a perpetual search for a justice connected to language, fr
eedom, progress, and love, a search that often occurred at the expense of her own familial history—particularly the histories of her mother and father. Nevertheless, the poet deftly crafted works representative of the lives of young people on the streets of Harlem, Brooklyn, and the Bronx, as well as in the San Francisco Bay area and throughout the Diaspora and developing nations considered Third World countries. Jordan often referred to what was

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  then known as the Third World as “First World” because of the political implications of language and freedom struggles that oftentimes define people’s resistances to injustices. For these reasons, June Jordan is considered by scholars and critics in various literary and political circles to be an American hero, a dissident lover of words, and a people’s poet whose struggle to live is embedded in one’s struggle to win.

  This latter message, especially, is evident in the creation of the June Jordan Poetry for the People Collective at the University of California, Berkeley in the early 1990s. Meanwhile, the struggle which Jordan observed, participated in, and documented for more than forty years—that of local, national, and international justice for people kept on the outside of privilege and power—did not die with her. Her love of justice, freedom, and words has had lasting effects on human relations, educational research, and the communicative engagements people have with one another. Jordan was, by any sense of the imagination, a complex human being who demonstrated her lifelong desire for social progress; she also expressed her desire for passionate love through joyful and tumultuous interactions with family members, friends, and colleagues, as well as in her published writing. Jordan’s “GREATEST GIFT,” according to poet and longtime friend, Sara Miles, “was falling in love. She fell in love over and over during her life, with a kind of reckless momentum, that defied everything else—fear, boredom, rage, and disappointment.”2 In the poem, “Directed by Desire,” Miles describes Jordan’s cycle of falling in and out of love, a cycle that connects well with Jordan’s political and literary strivings. Miles states: June fell in love, first, with words. She fell in love with Kipling and Shakespeare and Isaiah and Neruda and Whitman and with all the astonishing ways black people talk in America. June fell in love with thinking, with the thrill of intellectual life and the irresistible pull of half a dozen disciplines: architecture, music, poetry, journalism, teaching, theatre, politics. June fell in love with poets—living and dead—with artists, with musicians, with her students, with her friends, with a cute girl she saw at the copy shop, with a shy guy she met at a reading. She fell in love with Belfast and with Palestine.3