Haruko: Love Poems

by June Jordan, Sara Miles (Editor), Adrienne Rich (Preface)

"Haruko/Love Poems", 1993, June Jordan] WHAT IS THIS thing called love, in the poems of June Jordan, artist, teacher, social critic, visionary of human solidarity? First of all, it's a motive; the power Che Guevara was trying to invoke in his much-quoted assertion: "At the risk of appearing ridiculous . . . the true revolutionary is moved by great feelings of love." I think also of Paul Nizan: "You think you are innocent if you say, 'I love this woman and I want to act in accordance with my love,' but you are beginning the revolution. . . . You will be driven back: to claim the right to a human act is to attack the forces responsible for all the misery in the world." Neither of them, admittedly, was claiming the love of a woman for women, the love of a man for men, as revolutionary, as a human act.

But the motive is "directed by desire" in Jordan.

But the motive is "directed by desire" in Jordan

Genres: Poetry, Queer, LGBT, Nonfiction, Feminism, Lesbian, Love

140 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 1993

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

[Julie G · Rating 2 out of 5]

What a sloppy, disjointed and cryptic collection of poetry. Reading this made me feel like I was standing behind a couple, arguing in harsh whispers, in a grocery store line. Like. . . their issues, not mine, can't get away fast enough.

Typically I wouldn't even review something this underwhelming, but I waited quite a while for a copy of her poetry, since much of it has gone out-of-print, and I had already committed to scratching out status updates of the best that I could find, among the hot mess that is here.

Every once in a while, I'd hit a two-line or three-line gem, but, all in all, not too many winners here. As my maternal grandmother used to say, “I couldn't win for losing.”

If you'd like to read something inspiring by Ms. Jordan, may I please recommend her short novel, HIS OWN WHERE?

I'll end this on a positive note with the one poem in the collection that I liked in its entirety:

Poem About Process and Progress

Hey Baby you betta
hurry it up!
Because
since you went totally
off
I seen a full moon
I seen a half moon
I seen a quarter moon
I seen no moon whatsoever!

I seen a equinox
I seen a solstice
I seen Mars and Venus on a line
I seen a mess a fickle stars
and lately
I seen this new kind a luva
on an' off the telephone
who like to talk to me
all the time

real nice

[Pau · Rating 5 out of 5]

“it’s not that I gave away my keys. / The problem is nobody wants to steal me or my / house.” / “maybe I just need to love myself myself and / anyway / I’m working on it”

[Angie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Poetry is not, admittedly, a go-to genre of mine. It was painful enough in school for me, but occasionally there would be a poem that would really speak to me, so I can't write off the genre completely. Plus, I love the way poets play with language. Well, good poets anyway.

"In my opinion," Irenosen Okojie writes in their introduction to this collection of poems, "June Jordan is the greatest poet that ever lived. That she is not more widely recognized in the canon is because she was Black, female and bisexual." And, yeah, I have post-secondary literature degrees and I'd never heard of her until this collection of poems landed in my library's digital collection. And, after reading Haruko/Love Poems, I'm closer to siding with Okojie than not. (I'm not willing to declare anyone the greatest poet because, well, I haven't read nearly enough. But what I did read was on par or better than the canonical poets I'd read in school.)

Jordan writes unapologetically about her bisexuality, her blackness, her love, and her resistance to a world that stigmatizes her and people like her. Her poetry is powerful, evocative, brave. And I feel so lucky that I stumbled upon her work.

Some favourite poems form this collection (this is more for my future reference than yours):
* "12:01 A.M.":
- Then how should I / subsist / without the benediction of / our bodies / intertwined / or why?
- I am my soul adrift / the whole night sky denies / me light / without you
* "Poem for Haruko"
- How easily you held / my hand / beside the low tide / of the world
* Untitled: Why I became a pacifist / and then / How I became a warrior / again
* "Update":
- Still I am learning / unconditional and true / Still I am burning / unconditional for you
* "Resolution # 1,003
- I will feel nothing for / everyone oblivious to me

[m. · Rating 4 out of 5]

oh, you just get the sense that june jordan truly understood love, welcomed it, deferred to it no matter how frustrating it can get at times. and wow, how well she used language to show it! personally preferred the first part with the simple haruko poems, but the second half with its more personal & lyrical poems was also breathtaking. the one piece i can't stop thinking about is "resolution #1,003".

[Liam O'Leary · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hit or miss, but many more misses for me. Very lyrical and fiery but often I found it too scattered and inward to find enough to find a hold on. Too fragmentary, brash and stubborn for my liking of love poems. It just didn't resonate with me.

[janeee :D · Rating 3 out of 5]

this was so beautiful it made me so emotional
( loved poem about heartbreak that go on and on in particular )

[Caspar "moved to storygraph" Bryant]

i've enjoyed I MUST BECOME A MENACE TO MY ENEMIES for a hot minute & the way she writes skin has always been lovely but this was my first! real extended time with her.
very here for it. absolutely. I feel there's a slower start with HArUKo before we get to the more assured persona of the love poems section. But it's subtle. my FAVOURITE compliment / devotion is the line nothing about you / reminds me of money.

The long Pompeii poem ('Roman Poem Number Five') is just incredible & while it's recognised I think it deserves more immediate name rec as one of the best long poems written in the last century . But she's so full, all along, so giving. She's one that can set you off so easy to work your own way too... I just rly like how this panned out

[kate]

some really great poems but a lot of them that i felt meh about? i think she’s at her best at the intersection of love and domesticity. the introduction was really wonderful and super passionate about june jordan so i can definietly see myself revisiting these! surprised the pompeii poem didn’t hit for me

[mentalexotica · Rating 3 out of 5]

Poetry for heart-heavy nights. June Jordan is an ambulance for the accidents of love.

[Ife · Rating 4 out of 5]

For the longest time I felt that I couldn’t meet love poems where they were at. The first one I read was probably Sonnet 116 by Shakespeare which set the tone for most of the love poems I later read which, to me, had the same sickly idealistic texture. Love poems struck me as deeply hyperbolic, derivative, and unhuman; It also didn’t help that I was deeply sceptical of love. Now my perspective of love and love poems are a bit more permissive, though I still cannot stand the “I cannot breathe when you’re not near” variety. Few poets, I feel, are successful in revealing love as a human activity.

Haruko/Love Poems lyrically weaves together themes of love, heartbreak, resistance, coalition, and identity. Bringing together these themes of love and coalition was not new for me especially in the canon of Black female poets, however what feels different about Jordan’s work is how subtly she mixes the two. Indeed, one of the most significant motifs in the collection is network-related imagery: tissues, cells, roots, intersections, fireworks etc.

I ride these tracks to meet you:
moving through/an upright register
of shadow and of light
moving through
eclectic ganglia of open cities/nervous
nowhere immaculate nowhere a mystery
to match this urban earthquake travelling
stop by stop
into reunion with the highway wonder
of your eyes

(Last Stanza from ‘Bit City Happening/for Haruko’)


‘Tracks’, ‘ganglia’ and ‘nervous’ are all furcate imagery, creating this notion of occasional togetherness and departure that I feel characterise both love and coalition and create a more realistic (or shall I say familiar) image of love to me which is one characterised by moments, distance, departures, and reunions. In the entire collection she shows this state of being torn, I think, most memorably in the poem 'Free Flight', which is one of my favourites in the collection, but also through the motif of the telephone.

Her poetry is lyrical, often songlike, and uses intense and affective natural imagery to further drive home notions of connectedness and of being brought home. She weaves in and out of vernacular, of meter, and is playful with form to a degree I haven’t quite experienced with other poets. The natural imagery tends to be transient, but all together an odd mix between calming and passionate probably best captured in her ‘Fire’ poems.

It’s a mixed bag. I thought the Haruko section was more tightly constructed than the ‘Love Poems’ collection which for me had more variation in quality, but I fell in love with the personality of the poems. I would need to re-read to give a more in depth review, but I will close with one of my favourite poems which I think captures the personality of the collection which is admittedly a bit more stubborn than might be a few readers taste in a love collection, but rubbed me the right way.

POEM ABOUT PROCESS AND PROGRESS
for Haruko

Hey Baby you betta
hurry it up!
Because
since you went totally
off
I seen a full moon
I seen a half moon
I seen a quarter moon
I seen no moon whatsoever!

I seen a equinox
I seen a solstice
I seen Mars and Venus on a line
I seen a mess a fickle stars
and lately
I seen this new kind a luva
on an' off the telephone
who like to talk to me
all the time

real nice

[ness · Rating 5 out of 5]

this left me utterly breathless

[Lewis Isbell · Rating 3 out of 5]

Two days to forget yourself

[Amber van de Pol · Rating 3 out of 5]

I especially loved the roman poems!

[Claudia Osborne · Rating 4 out of 5]

jordan discusses life, femininity, queerness and the black experience with such passion and conviction - the anthology is full of the unapologetic, the brash, and jordan manages to immerse the reader in her unique lens of the world more often than not.

her skill is made most distinct in HOW she conveys her reality through such varying forms, at first shorter haruko poems, then longer, lyrical/narrative pieces. love discussed through jordan’s bisexuality was overall the most riveting aspect for me; fiery and gritty and real, you felt as though she was unburdening herself to you specifically. such strong emotion was consistently conveyed throughout. indisputably, all works were ‘love poems’ in the most innate sense of the title.

[Maja]

«Rushing like white
waters rapid toward precipitous
and killer rocks
the blood of time alone
escapes control and leaking
useless
dries and quantifies
the liquid loss of impulse
purified by any of your fingertips
that touch my face»

AAAAHHHHHHH!!!!

[bella]

lyrical and lovely. heartful and moving. powerful and uplifting. this was my first time reading a collection from june jordan, and i’m so glad that i did! jordan writes unapologetically of her experiences with being black and queer, her bisexuality, and struggles in a sometimes unwelcoming world. yet, she also captures the beauty and tenderness of love in such a thoughtful, intimate way.

[Wyatt strawbridge · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was full of great poetry, lots of just the kind of poetry I like. June Jordan is lyrical, serious, playful, and most of all, these poems feel alive in a way that makes you want to read them out loud, the way poetry should be consumed. Refreshing

[C · Rating 3 out of 5]

Consider that 3 star rating to be 3 1/2 stars. (2 stars for the first section, 4 for the second)

I wasn't too impressed with the first section, the "Haruko" poems although there were a few that I liked.

The second section, though... The Selected Love Poems 1970 - 1991 were fantastic. Such a wonderful combination of the intensely personal with the raging political. I have not read a poet as good at consistently combining a true love poem with the horrible stories of the world. There is a fire here -- an anger, a passion, a *fierce* love. Not every poem holds to that raw power, but most of them do.

I, however, did not like the long poem (Roman Poem Number Five) that ended the book. I felt that it actually took away from the second section. Long poems are hard to sustain and I felt personally that this one ranged across the map a little too much to get its point across.

[B · Rating 5 out of 5]

love is real

[Laura Mustard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Binge-reading poetry seems like an ineffective way of consuming it, but it's the only way I know how.

[Amany · Rating 2 out of 5]

Old poems just arent for me.

[Sonja · Rating 5 out of 5]

I the 2023 edition of June Jordan’s book first published in the UK in 1993 by Virago. Except for the introduction by Irenosen Okojie which was written for this 2023 edition, the book is a reissue.
It was really a high to read June Jordan again. I have loved her work since I first encountered it when I was younger. A woman passionate about life and wanting to “be a menace to my enemies” at the same time.
My first time reading this book, I now vow to get the physical book. I am sorry I got a digital copy. I try to read poetry in book form. I will read it again.
I have so much to say about this book. I so appreciate her openness about her love for women as well as her bisexuality. Her passion ranges from the specific person to people throughout the ages. And her anger and her self-love and nature and travel are also subjects.
From “Sunflower Sonnets Number One”
But if I tell you how my
heart swings wide
Enough to motivate
flirtations with the
trees

Or from “I Must Become a Menace to my Enemies”
I plan to blossom bloody
on an afternoon
surrounded by my
comrades singing
terrible revenge in
merciless
accelerating
rhythms

A beautiful and wondrous book of poetry!

[Arvis · Rating 2 out of 5]

On my ever long journey of finding poetry that truly speaks to me, Jordan helped me to take a step in the right direction.

There were a few poems I thought were genuinely interesting and great, even though a lot was still lost on me. I feel like this is a book I could come back to in a decade and I would’ve grown enough to understand it more.

[Jaclyn Hillis]

“I knew whoever the hell ‘my people’ are I knew that one of them is you”

I liked a few lines, and a few poems, but overall I didn’t love this collection. The poems felt very scattered and didn’t make me emotional in the way I want poetry to make me feel.

[maria]

"Maybe when I wake up in the middle of the night
I should go downstairs
dump the refrigerator contents on the floor
and stand there in the middle of the spilled milk
and the wasted butter spread beneath my dirty feet
writing poems
writing poems
maybe I just need to love myself myself and
anyway
I’m working on it."

[grey · Rating 4 out of 5]

a gem of a human.

some favorites from this collection:
"resolution #1,003"
"on a new year's eve"
"on your love"
"from flight"
"the morning on the mountains"
"i must become a menace to my enemies"

[Abbey Hilder · Rating 4 out of 5]

These poems made me really sad and emotional. Very beautiful.

[theperksofbeingmarissa ;) · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.75 rounded up. I was confused for the most part. I didn't enjoy most of these poems as well.

[Sophia Liu · Rating 5 out of 5]

silly in love

[Laila · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not one of my favs :(