Overview

A collection of bold and tender writing on June Jordan's multidimensional legacy as a poet, healer, and activist. was curated for people who see love as a life force, who seek a community that can sustain us, who know that ""we are the ones we have been waiting for."" Celebrating the life and legacy of the poet activist June Jordan, this collection illuminates why we need Jordan more than ever. Featuring a foreword by Alexis Pauline Gumbs, an afterword from Imani Perry, essays, poems, letters, and interviews from internationally acclaimed poets and thinkers such as Angela Davis, Pratibha Parmar, Margo Okazawa-Rey, Naomi Shihab Nye, Afaa M. Weaver, E. Ethelbert Miller, andmany other people touched by Jordan's work.

Full Product Details

Author:   Lauren Muller ,  Becky Thompson ,  Dominique C. Hill ,  Durell M. Callier
Publisher:   Haymarket Books
Imprint:   Haymarket Books
ISBN:  

9798888904572

Pages:   304
Publication Date:   11 November 2025
Audience:   General/trade ,  General
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Not yet available  
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Table of Contents

Foreword: A Definition of Love by Alexis Pauline Gumbs PART ONE: POET ON THE WORLD STAGE In Response to “The Bombing of Baghdad” by June Jordan, Naomi Shihab Nye Black Alive and Looking Straight at You: The Legacy of June Jordan, Elizabeth Alexander It Began as a Romance: The Collaboration of June Jordan and Adrienne B. Torf, Adrienne B. Torf Archive of a Bruise, Arc of the Blues, Alexis De Veaux June Jordan and the Renaissance of Poetry as a Performing Art, Zack Rogow Urban Ghazal, Zack Rogow “A Report from the Bahamas”: And What of Identity Politics? Margo Okazawa-Rey Elegy for a Soldier, Marilyn Hacker Letter to My Friend, for June Jordan, Kathy Engel Puño en Alto! Libro Abierto! / Fists, Up! Books, Open!: On Anti-Intellectualism, Literacy Brigades, and Revolutionary Consciousness, Maria Poblet The Set Up, Mahogany L. Browne The Waters Are Wide: We Can Cross Over, Becky Thompson Call and Response, Gwendolen Hardwick PART TWO: WE ARE LUCKY SHE DARED Some of Us Did Not Die, Remembering June Jordan, E. Ethelbert Miller Bit by Bit, Dima Hilal Elphinstone, Bombay 1993 “The Bombing of Baghdad”: Building Connections in a Time of War, Shanti Bright Brien Maestra, Xochiquetzal Candelaria Dear June, Ruth Forman not past, Ariel Luckey A Blueprint for June’s Love, Sheila Menenzes Choosing a Praxis of Liberation, Kate Holbrook On the Spirit of June Jordan: The Ultimate Capacities of a School’s Lifeforce, Jessica Wei Huang Stay All the Way with Reggie and Ranya, Reid Gómez I choose/anything/anyone/I may lose: June Jordan, Faith, and Holy Risk, Dani Gabriel Between the Knuckles of My Own Two Hands: Learning from June Jordan, Sriram Shamasunder PART THREE: THE AWESOME, DIFFICULT WORK OF LOVE A Place of Rage: A Conversation, Angela Y. Davis, Pratibha Parmar, and Leigh Raiford So Long Our Sisters Love Us Strongly, Rachel Eliza Griffiths In Response to “Apologies to All the People in Lebanon,” adrienne maree brown After June Jordan, A Poem About Police Violence, Jehan Bseiso For the Sake of a People’s Poetry: June Jordan and Walt Whitman, Donna Masini Truth-Telling as an Emancipatory Act: What June Jordan Taught Me About Liberation, Elizabeth Riva Meyer Finding “Living Room” with My Drone, Zeina Azzam Love Like a Mango, Obvious, Will Horter June Jordan: When All Things Are Dear Disappear, Wesley Brown Something Like a Sonnet: Reading June Jordan, Finding My Voice, and Becoming an Oral Historian, Kelly Elaine Navies Choosing My Mind Between the Mosquitos and the Moon, Ruth Nicole Brown A Note on Praxis and Black Girls, Dominique C. Hill Become a Menace, Afaa M. Weaver 尉雅風 Afterword by Imani Perry Acknowledgements Notes Bibliography

Reviews

“Through poignant, funny, and searing reflections by so many who walked alongside Jordan, this collection offers readers of Jordan's work a living portrait of a great American poet.” —Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, author of Something About Living “If you do not know this poet, no matter how many material possessions you amass—you are impoverished.” —Regie Gibson, Massachusetts Poet Laureate “For June, the struggle ultimately was about and in the service of love. The ways this book allows both to coexist is impressive.” —Cornelius Eady, author of Brutal Imagination 

Author Information

Becky Thompsonis a scholar, poet, activist, and author of poetry collectionsTo Speak in SaltandZero Is the Whole I Fall into at Night. Reckonings: Contemporary Short Fiction by Native American Women. , an assistant professor of women's studies at Colgate University, is a qualitative researcher and body archivist studying Black girlhood and Black queer resistance. is an artist-scholar who documents the lived experiences of Black youth and their communities, examining how Black art and creative practices subvert and reimagine Black life in the face of violence.

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