THIS UNRULY WITNESS

Homage to a beloved poet.

This compendium of 38 essays, letters, and poems honors the poet, essayist, and activist June Jordan (1936-2002) with contributions from Jordan’s friends and students and the many educators and activists to whom she bequeathed a legacy of love: “an opportunity to love ourselves and each other more honestly.” Many, like Thompson, involved in grassroots activism, found inspiration in Jordan’s energy. “She lived her life,” Thompson writes, “as if it were a rushing river, with inlets for rest, and rapids where she insisted that she and all those she was around hold on for dear life.” Jordan’s political engagement reflected her deep empathy; poet E. Ethelbert Miller points to lines written in response to the Israeli bombing of Lebanon in 1982: “I was born a Black woman,” Jordan wrote, “and now / I am become a Palestinian.” Her students attest to her generosity and encouragement. In her Poetry for the People class at UC Berkeley, students used Jordan’s “Guidelines for Critiquing a Poem” as a framework, a piece that several educators cite as an influence in their own teaching. For Jordan, poetry was art, craft, and a way of being in the world. As Xochiquetzal Candelaria recalls, “She described writing poetry as being like wrestling with an angel, letting us know that we were going to lose, but that the experience was blessed and transformational.” Interviewed about their relationship with Jordan, Angela Davis and British filmmaker Pratibha Parmar remember that after meeting her in Paris, they received on their breakfast tray a poem, “Solidarity,” celebrating their new friendship. A sense of solidarity informed Jordan’s life. She was compassionate, Davis recalls, “and felt deeply for everyone undergoing any form of oppression.”

A deeply felt memorial.