Status Updates From June Jordan's Poetry for th...

Poetry is a political action undertaken for the sake of information, the faith, the exorcism, and the lyrical invention, that telling the truth makes possible. Poetry means taking control of the language of your life. Good poems can interdict a suicide, rescue a love affair, and build a revolution in which speaking and listening to somebody becomes the first and last purpose to every social encounter.

You cannot write lies and write good poetry. Deceit, abstraction, euphemism: any one of these will doom a poem to the realm of "baffling" or
"forgettable," or worse. Good poetry requires precision: if you do not attempt to say, accurately, truthfully, what you feel or see or need, then how will you achieve precision? What criterion will guide you to the next absolutely
"right" word?

for class, throughout the semester