Soulscript: A Collection of Classic African American Poetry

by June Jordan

Black poets from the early twentieth century and onward come together for a moving anthology, edited and organized by the late, revered poet June Jordan.

First published in 1970, soulscript is a poignant, panoramic collection of poetry from some of the most eloquent voices in the art. Selected for their literary excellence and by the dictates of Jordan’s heart, these works tell the story of both collective and personal experiences, in Jordan’s words, “in tears, in rage, in hope, in sonnet, in blank/free verse, in overwhelming rhetorical scream.”


Soulscript features works by Jordan and other luminaries like Gwendolyn Brooks, Countee Cullen, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Nikki Giovanni, Langston Hughes, Gayl Jines, James Weldon Johnson, Audre Lorde, Claude McKay, Ishmael Reed, Sonia Sanchez, and Richard Wright, as well as the fresh voices of a turbulent era’s younger writers. Celebrated spoken-word poet Staceyann Chin, an original cast member of Def Poetry Jam on Broadway, has also added an introduction that speaks to Jordan’s legacy, helping to further cement soulscript as a visionary compilation that has already become a modern classic.

Genres: Poetry

208 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1970

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

[Emmkay · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting anthology of Black American poetry first published in 1979 edited and with an introduction by June Jordan. Some familiar poets, like Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, Audre Lord, Jean Toomer, Richard Wright, but also many others I wasn’t familiar with and a section of poems by poets ages 12-18. Many of the poems selected hold up very well, but I also enjoyed the picture they gave me of the time in which they were selected.

Favourites included “beware: do not read this poem” by Ishmael Reed (“the hunger of this poem is legendary/it has taken in many victims/ back off from this poem/ it has drawn in yr feet/ back off from this poem/ it has drawn in yr legs/ back off from this poem/ it is a greedy mirror”) and the excerpt from “Riot Rimes: USA” by Raymond R. Patterson (“I felt this itching all over/ My skin/ So I smashed that plate-glass window in,/ And all that fancy furniture/ And easy credit plans/ Were right there in my hands -/ All the things that I’ve been needing./ And I didn’t know my hands were bleeding.”).

[La’Gera LaBeaud · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review post from IG : - So beautifully and well put together 🥲 I’ve been researching these poets like crazy. I love anthology books for this reason because you get exposed to different writers at different levels in their career but all sharing a space as peers.

So I’ll definitely be adding more literary anthologies on my list after this one.

You’ll find a lot of familiar names in this collection too, e.g. :

Gwendolyn Brooks, Langston Hughes, Nikki Giovanni, Audre Lorde, Ishmael Reed, Sonia Sanchez, Richard Wright (And this is just to name a few) -

[Rob · Rating 5 out of 5]

Found this at a thrift store for $0.25. Well worth the purchase. The collection contains some classics by poets like Gwendolyn Brooks and Langston Hughes, and introduced me to a few poets I hadn't read before. I particularly enjoyed the poems by Julius Lester, who I had not preciously read.

[Karyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent collection of African American poetry to get introduced to an array of poets and styles. I appreciated the way the poems were grouped, offering a thematic arch among the selection.

[karayán naulimek · Rating 5 out of 5]

i love poetry and i LOVE black nationalism

[Muhammad · Rating 2 out of 5]

Didn't enjoy this as much as I thought I would. The organization was good and unique. The selected poems were not as good. There are better anthologies.

[Eryn James · Rating 4 out of 5]

SoulScript. What is there to say? It's simply a fantastic book of a compilation of phenomenal poets written by extraordinary poets and activists. The book, to me, was simply a portal to all the different stories being told. The book helped me understand the 10 African American poets purpose for writing. “When they write poetry, the very young brothers and sisters predict the future terms/ for measuring the world we/ must share.” They wanted to share the world with those who have yet understand how this world we live in came to be. They told their stories and sometimes the stories of others. The book, all in all, was an inspiration for me and could be for those who will read it in the future.
There are many books that are written with the purpose to teach people how to write poems or how to get your feelings out. But this book is a first hand copy of the proper way to get, what us spoken word artists like to call, “free”. What that terms means is getting any thing off your chest with the simple art of poetry. The 10 artist in this book told stories and got things off their souls with the simplicity of words. You can make poetry as complex or as simple as you want but this is a guide of what getting emotionally “right” looks like. SoulScript is, again, a phenomenal book!

[Barbara · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not a review, just some things I am thinking about poets of color and American poetry. Here are some excerpts from June Jordan's introduction, which she originally wrote in 1969:

"Poetry changes life into a written drama where words set the stage and where words then act as the characters on that stage."

"Language is something common, something always shared -- like air. The human voice depends on air. Poetry depends on language. But voice transforms the air into spoken personality. And poetry transforms a language into voice. Poems are the voiceprints of language, or if you prefer, soulscript. In part, the problems of poetry-writing stem from the nature of its material: language as everybody's identical tool."

[Mills College Library]

811.008 S723 2004