As I am a poet I express what I believe, and I fight against whatever I oppose, in poetry. — June Jordan Copy Share Image
“I have been the meaning of rape I have been the problem everyone seeks to eliminate by forced penetration with or without… — June Jordan Copy Share Image
“This is the difficult miracle of Black poetry in America: that we persist, published or not, and loved or unloved: we persist.” — June Jordan Copy Share Image
So, poetry becomes a means for useful dialogue between people who are not only unknown, but mute to each other. It produces… — June Jordan Copy Share Image
The first function of poetry is to tell the truth, to learn how to do that, to find out what you really… — June Jordan Copy Share Image
The music of language became extremely important to me, and obvious to me. By the time I was seven I was writing… — June Jordan Copy Share Image
As a poet and writer, I deeply love and I deeply hate words. I love the infinite evidence and change and requirements… — June Jordan Copy Share Image
I wrote those poems for myself, as a way of being a soldier here in this country. I didn't know the poems… — June Jordan Copy Share Image
“ I am not wrong: Wrong is not my name My name is my own my own my own and I can’t… — June Jordan Copy Share Image
Good poetry and successful revolution change our lives. And you cannot compose a good poem or wage a revolution without changing consciousness… — June Jordan Copy Share Image
As a poet and writer, I deeply love and I deeply hate words. I love the infinite evidence and change and requirements… — June Jordan Copy Share Image
What's important about poetry in the context of leadership is that most of the time, power has to do with dominance. But… — June Jordan Copy Share Image
“They blew up your homes and demolished the grocery / stores and blocked the Red Cross and took away doctors / to… — June Jordan Copy Share Image
But, based on my friendship with Evie as young mothers, I started going on freedom rides in 1966. — June Jordan Copy Share
To tell the truth is to become beautiful, to begin to love yourself, value yourself. And that's political, in its most profound way. — June Jordan Copy Share
In America, you can segregate the people, but the problems will travel. From slavery to equal rights, from state suppression of dissent to crime,… — June Jordan Copy Share
Americans have begun to understand that trouble does not start somewhere on the other side of town. It seems to originate inside the absolute… — June Jordan Copy Share
The United States Supreme Court, once a reliable if ultimate recourse for progressive and even revolutionary grievances, has become a retrograde wellspring for enormous… — June Jordan Copy Share
My father was very intense, passionate and over-the-top. He was my hero and my tyrant. — June Jordan Copy Share
The purpose of polite behavior is never virtuous. Deceit, surrender, and concealment these are not virtues. The goal of the mannerly is comfort, per… — June Jordan Copy Share
“the motivation behind every sentence is the wish to say something real to somebody real.” — June Jordan Copy Share
Bisexuality means I am free and I am as likely to want to love a woman as I am likely to want to love… — June Jordan Copy Share
Body and soul, Black America reveals the extreme questions of contemporary life, questions of freedom and identity: How can I be who I am? — June Jordan Copy Share
South Africa used to seem so far away. Then it came home to me. It began to signify the meaning of white hatred here.… — June Jordan Copy Share
The thing about genius is it will never yield to circumstances. Genius regards what's given as the beginning of its need to find or… — June Jordan Copy Share
