Passion: New Poems, 1977-1980 [10/30/1980] June Jordan

by June Jordan

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

Genres: Poetry, Feminism, Queer, LGBT, Politics, Female Authors, Nonfiction

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1980

About the author

June 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)

Reviews

[Ken]

Why is it that so many older works by Black authors read "just like today"? Maybe because the topic is often violence and racism and injustice. Welcome to America, where you can count on the wrong Groundhog Days to keep repeating.

Exhibit A is June Jordan's Passion, a collection of poems written between 1977 and 1980. A glance at a few titles says it all: "Letter to the Local Police," "Poem About Police Violence," "Poem About South African Women," "Rape Is Not a Poem," "Poem About My Rights," "The Song of Sojourner Truth."

If, like Viet Thanh Nguyen, you think poets and writers are obligated to write political work, this is your poet. Clearly Jordan sees the pen as a call to arms, a means of calling out injustice. But she's more than a current events or Black and feminist writer. As seen in the poem below, she could wield a sense of humor and an appreciation for the natural world, too.

Evidently Looking at the Moon Requires a Clean 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


Nicole Sealey wrote the introduction to the return of this book, which includes a nonfiction piece called "For the Sake of a People's Poetry: Walt Whitman and the Rest of Us." By that Jordan means you and me. Regular folk like good old Walt. People obliged to speak out no matter what their lot in life.

[Sharon]

"And you an obstinate an elegant
nail-bitten hand on quandaries of self-correction/
self-perfection as political as building your own
bed to tell the truth in"

[Elizabeth]

Passion is the first work I'm reading from June Jordan (finally), but it certainly won't be my last. This is a brilliant and beautiful poetry collection that epitomizes the expression "the personal is political." The poems address police brutality, rape, racism, misogyny, biphobia, and more. I'll have to reread this one eventually, but I definitely need to read more of her works. My favourite poems from this collection were Poem for Nana and Poem About My Rights, but it was a truly excellent collection from beginning to end. Highly recommended!

[Nicki]

So much of this is so terribly relevant right now--police killing black men, rape with impunity, etc.

My favorite piece in this collection by far is "Poem about My Rights." I like to read poetry out loud to my self. This particular piece gave me chills.

[Hollis]

The first poem, “Poem for Nana,” highlights the genocide of Indigenous Americans, with Jordan asking, plainly, “Where are the Indians?” (3). This question is repeated as Jordan describes the landscape around her, emphasizing the relationship between Indian genocide and American sense of place sought in the landscape. Anna Mae Pictou Aquash, a First Nations activist, is specifically named, as is the Trail of Broken Treaties (5). Jordan resists the narrative of genocide as a historical past, speaking its present violences into the contemporary. Across the volume, Jordan frames the various scales at which gendered violence occurs, whether it is aimed at an individual body or a nation. One of my other favorites, “Poem about My Rights” (87), stages a phenomenal encounter between the personal and the political, and it is absolutely exhausting but also infinitely rich to get through. This volume features plenty of her most iconic poems and lines while also showing a lot of great material than simply hasn't been anthologized. Her writing is funny, bashful, direct (see: "Poem about Police Violence"), but also inviting, super conversational, and, well, I would definitely run out of words if I tried to fully describe it. I also love her play with form and line breaking; this volume never feels stagnant because of the variety given to space and line movement.

[jámie]

this anthology just rolled off the tongue, her sibilance is to die for, seriously. such a relevant and important book for young minds to read at this time of political horror and injustice. june jordan i will always come back to your work.

my favourite works include:
‘free flight’
‘for a lil bit’
‘poem about my rights’

[sophie adams]

Very slowly and carefully threaded my way through this one: some days I almost meditatively kicked off with a poem from this bundle, but sometimes weeks would pass without reading any, only to be followed by days in which I basically inhaled these pages. The beautiful thing about June Jordan is the feeling of always having something to go back to, reread, and re-feel (the rhythm of) these words. This bundle also made for a wonderful little surprise when ‘Poem about my rights’ suddenly popped up in the teaching materials of the last week!!!!

[mafi]

"maybe i just need to love myself myself and
anyway
I'm working on it"
— "Free Flight"

already knew of some of june jordan's poems thanks to my north american literature class last year, and now i finally read this collection, a birthday gift from two friends :) found myself searching jordan's references and who some of her poems are dedicated to, even at night before going to bed!

[Vinny Corsaro]

Oscillating between poetic exercises, poems about love, and striking political messages, June Jordan is always a treat to read. Sometimes radical, sometimes more Wadsworth than Huey Newton, her poetry meant something, means something, and will always mean something.

[Mary]

one of many books purchased in London before I knew what else what coming. the love letter to Walt Whitman in the preface & having the wind knocked out of me by:

and I can't tell you who the hell set things up like this
but I can tell you that from now on my resistance
my simple and daily and nightly self-determination
may very well cost you your life

[Zara Chauvin]

So amazing. Not at all surprised this collection is award winning and now commemorated in the new penguin collection.

Beautiful, personal and also highly relevant and accessible. Witty, political, real.

Go read !!

[Akankshya]

A genius. Poetry I keep coming back to.

[Leta McWilliams]

“Inaction is death”

[TheCalloftheLibrary]

reminder to search for the original preface later. amazing as always- taking note of the push-pull of language here and everywhere in Jordan's work; whatever fits the tone gets thrown in, vacillating wildly between terminology, street-talk, verbose wordage, etc etc, its the ultimate in service of the greater needs of the poem in a way that's admirable, beautiful, and speaks to Jordan's multi-variant understanding of poetic/political form.

[Dina]

Strong collection, great range. Much of this still resonates today. I really thought the preface re: Walt Whitman was excellent and set the poetry in motion for me.

[Jose Roque Perez-Zetune]

thanks katrina !

[Mike]

Letter to the Local Police

Dear Sirs:

I have been enjoying the law and order of our
community throughout the past three months since
my wife and I, our two cats, and miscellaneous
photographs of the six grandchildren belonging to
our previous neighbors (with whom we were very
close) arrived in Saratoga Springs which is clearly
prospering under your custody

Indeed, until yesterday afternoon and despite my
vigilant casting about, I have been unable to discover
a single instance of reasons for public-spirited concern,
much less complaint

You may easily appreciate, then, how it is that
I write to your office, at this date, with utmost
regret for the lamentable circumstances that force
my hand

Speaking directly to the issue of the moment:

I have encountered a regular profusion of certain
unidentified roses, growing to no discernible purpose,
and according to no perceptible control, approximately
one quarter mile west of the Northway, on the southern
side

To be specific, there are practically thousands of
the aforementioned abiding in perpetual near riot
of wild behavior, indiscriminate coloring, and only
the Good Lord Himself can say what diverse soliciting
of promiscuous cross-fertilization

As I say, these roses, no matter what the apparent
background, training, tropistic tendencies, age,
or color, do not demonstrate the least inclination
toward categorization, specified allegiance, resolute
preference, consideration of the needs of others, or
any other minimal traits of decency

May I point out that I did not assiduously seek out
this colony, as it were, and that these certain
unidentified roses remain open to viewing even by
children, with or without suitable supervision

(My wife asks me to append a note as regards the
seasonal but nevertheless seriously licentious
phenomenon of honeysuckle under the moon that one may
apprehend at the corner of Nelson and Main

However, I have recommended that she undertake direct
correspondence with you, as regards this: yet
another civic disturbance in our midst)

I am confident that you will devise and pursue
appropriate legal response to the roses in question
If I may aid your efforts in this respect, please
do not hesitate to call me into consultation

Respectfully yours,

[Sam]

4.5

What a book to hit my reading goal for the year with. Brutal and loving, ice and fire, tender and ferocious. Some all time favourites in this collection, I think, though as with all good poetry you really should let it brew for a bit (which I am ignoring in favour of shouting about it in this review). It's about love, hate, politics, rape, police, the expanse of America and what it has been bent into by fearful power hoarders. Not without trigger warnings, but it's an honest appraisal of a country and its people.

The Preface of the Penguin Archive edition is a surprising dissection of poetry in America, and after that my favourites include Case in Point, Patricia's Poem, An Explanation Always Follows, Letter to the Local Police, A Song of Sojourner Truth, calling it quits, Rape is Not a Poem, Poem About My Rights and From America: A Poem in Process.

But I'm sharing one that fits in here, not least because it shows off the razor wit veined through Jordan's deep passion.

A Short Note to My Very Critical and Well-Beloved Friends and Comrades

"First they said I was too light
Then they said I was too dark
Then they said I was too different
Then they said I was too much the same
Then they said I was too young
Then they said I was too old
Then they said I was too interracial
Then they said I was too much a nationalist
Then they said I was too silly
Then they said I was too angry
Then they said I was too idealistic
Then they said I was too confusing altogether:
Make up your mind! They said. Are you militant
or sweet? Are you vegetarian or meat? Are you straight
or are you gay?

And I said, Hey! It's not about *my* mind."

Highly recommended.

[seth]

“Poem about my rights” is a world stopping poem. So is “free flight”. But she also makes you laugh. She also takes you to different geographies. Her poetic voice coaxes you into following her. If you ever see this, just buy it. So much to learn from June Jordan, still. About love. About resistance. About connection. About commitment. About life. She’s a phenomenal poet. And to quote Alice Walker quoting June Jordan:

“And for ourselves, the intrinsic
“purpose” is to reach, and to remember,
and to declare our commitment to all
the living, without deceit, and without
fear, and without reservation. We do
what we can. And by doing it, we keep
ourselves trusting, which is to say,
vulnerable, and more than that,
what can anyone ask?”

[Cody]

definitely my favorite collection this year… jordan’s voice is so conversational and soooo lyrical! funny and cutting in equal measure and often both! fave pieces: “poem of personal greeting for fidel,” “patricia’s poem,” “sketching in the transcendental,” and ESPECIALLY “free flight” and “inaugural rose”

[Valentino]

I’m not a huge poetry person, but this was absolutely fantastic. Also, leftist politics make everything better. What can I say, I’m a simple guy.

But seriously, June Jordan is so fucking cool. I can also recommend the documentary ‘A Place of Rage’ with June Jordan and Angela Davis. It’s on youtube and fucking fantastic.

[Katie]

This is some of the first poetry I’ve read since my GCSEs and it was so beautiful. I think I’ll need to reread when I’m back in the correct mindset to think more deeply about what some of the poems mean, but generally the themes and poems were haunting reads and still relevant so many decades after they were written.

[Reba]

This poetry collection expands across a range of emotions and topics. Jordan can reach inwards so deep to touch exactly what it feels like to exist and then she shines a mirror outwards to magnify the injustices found in the world around us. I also loved the essay on Walt Whitman at the very beginning.

[J]

Passion! Some tightly wound, wide stepping, windy feeling, 'joy is not nice' feeling, where Jordan's self determination will cost her enemies their lives...
Liked the longer poems in this, some were obscure for me and made me remember that I don't really get poetry, some like Free Flight were astounding!

[みか]

The people of the sacred trees
and rivers precious to the stars that told
old stories to the night

a fluid holiness
of spirits wrapped around the world

whispering communion
compelled the moon into the evening

deify
the thing within

down into the bleeding of the muscle
down into the candle of the blood

[Cam Mbayo]

this put me on June Jordan! excited to learn more about this brilliant jamaican born bed-stuy queer poet. Was going to try and list all my favorite but instead just the first three: Case in Point, Patrcia's Poem, TV is Easy Next to Life.

[Nina]

I loved this book and appreciated Nicole Sealey's helpful foreword. I was surprised by how much I loved Jordan's essay about poetry for the rest of us and Walt Whitman. I need to read more of Jordan's work.

[Shawn Aebi]

The voice and the eyes that surround us now she had back in the 70s. Strong works on what fills your life - the energy, the violence, the contemplation on how to consider others.

[Brian]

Historical and personal poetry... I found myself revisiting the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s with occasional new insights.

[Reader]

Trigger warning - a lot of references to rape.