June Jordan

"«Dificultades técnicas se lee no solo como el trabajo de una testigo formidable de la historia, sino como el de unapoeta que anticipó ?tal como los grandes poetas hacen a menudo? un futuro en el cual nos debatimos hoy», afirma Angela Davis en el prólogo escrito para esta edición, primera de sus obras traducida al castellano. En los veintitrés ensayos recopilados, June Jordan (1936-2002) lleva a cabo una electrizante revisión del sueño americano. «Como todos quienes tuvieron oportunidad de conocer a June Jordan y ser iluminados y conmovidos por sus escritos, la echo terriblemente de menos ?prosigue Angela Davis?. Me di cuenta de hasta qué punto echaba de menos su visión política aquella noche de 2008 en la que supimos que Barack Obama había sido elegido para la presidencia de Estados Unidos. Pero la echo aún más de menos en este difícil momento, en el que June sabría expresar exacta y simultáneamente la decepción de pasadas e incumplidas esperanzas y la ilusión respecto al futuro. Sabría cómo decir que ya es hora de dejar de proyectar nuestro poder colectivo sobre individuos que parecen exceder la propia vida. Tal como escribió: Es a nosotros mismos a quienes hemos estado esperando»." - publisher

A little girl describes her life in the city where she works poetry puzzles indoors and has outdoor adventures with the dog that she is taking care of for a friend.

With their lives spinning out of control, sixteen-year-old Buddy Rivers and his girl friend Angela create their own way of staying alive in Brooklyn in the mid-1960s.

A collection of poems by African-American writers.

Directed by Desire is the definitive overview of June Jordan’s poetry. Collecting the finest work from Jordan’s ten volumes, as well as dozens of “last poems” that were never published in Jordan’s lifetime, these more than six hundred pages overflow with intimate lyricism, elegance, fury, meditative solos, and dazzling vernacular riffs. As Adrienne Rich writes in her introduction, June Jordan “wanted her readers, listeners, students, to feel their own latent power—of the word, the deed, of their own beauty and intrinsic value.” From “These Poems”: These poems they are things that I do in the dark reaching for you whoever you are and are you ready?

With the same pithy but eloquent observations characteristic of Jordan's classic poetry collections, Things that I Do in the Dark and Living Room, and her notable essay collections, Civil Wars and Technical Difficulties, Kissing God Goodbye will strike a universal chord as it witnesses the pain, confusion, and passion of what it's like to live in our society at the twilight of the twentieth century. June Jordan's many selves, as poet, essayist, feminist, and activist come together here in a collection of poetry that is alternately lyrical, magical, shockingly spare, pungently political, yet universally resonate. Beautiful love poems are interspersed with poems about Bosnia, Africa, urban America, Clarence Thomas, affirmative action, her mother's suicide, and Jordan's bout with breast cancer. This collection of poetry will be warmly welcomed by June Jordan loyalists and new readers who will thrill to discover a voice that has been described as one of the "most gifted poets of the late twentieth century."

"Poet, activist, and essayist June Jordan is a prolific, significant American writer who pushed the limits of political vision and moral witness, traversing a career of over forty years. With poetry, prose, letters, and more, this reader is a key resource for understanding the scope, complexity, and novelty of this pioneering Black American writer. From "Poem about Police Violence": Tell me something what you think would happen if everytime they kill a black boy then we kill a cop everytime they kill a black man then we kill a cop you think the accident rate would lower subsequently?. I lose consciousness of ugly bestial rabid and repetitive affront as when they tell me 18 cops in order to subdue one man 18 strangled him to death in the ensuing scuffle (don't you idolize the diction of the powerful: subdue and scuffle my oh my) and that the murder that the killing of Arthur Miller on a Brooklyn street was just a "justifiable accident" again (again) People been having accidents all over the globe so long like that I reckon that the only suitable insurance is a gun"--

Encouraged by Father, three children move into and decorate their own room while Mother is in the hospital having a new baby sister.

"A collection drawn from June Jordan's previous books"-- This collection of poems-- some previously unpublished-- provides a distillation of Jordan's very best works over a long career. Her poems arose out of the crises of their eras, but timelessly address subjects such as police brutality, systemic racism, and the struggle for global solidarity among marginalized people. -- adapted from back cover

Piercingly intuitive, eloquent, and caustic, Affirmative Acts is an address to the social, economic, racial, and political conflicts that mar the otherwise beautiful human experience. In this new collection of political essays, Jordan explores the confusion of an America in the grip of pseudo-multiculturalism and political intolerance. Continuing in the tradition of her classic collections Civil Wars and Technical Difficulties, Jordan acquaints readers with moments of American life threatened by social negligence and economic despair. With her characteristic insight, Jordan unveils how these too-frequent bouts of civil unrest bring out the weakest parts of the American spirit and challenges readers to remain inspired as society approaches the millennium. June Jordan's wisdom shines through in this brilliant collection of inspirational essays, which will be eagerly awaited by Jordan loyalists and enjoyed by her new readers.

A poem exploring the condition, feelings, and ideas of blacks in a white society illustrated by reproductions of paintings depicting the life of blacks in America throughout history.

Twenty black and Puerto Rican children write their poetic impressions of growing up in the ghettos of America.

"Though many aspects of June Jordan's unique and dynamic forms of work and activism have been well documented, "Life Studies," traces a through line of her creative interventions to form a fuller portrait of her complex and interrelated engagements. Through essays and policy reports from her days as a housing activist, speeches, her work with children, and texts from her time at City College of New York, this project adds new layers to Jordan's legacy, showing how she created "living room" to enact a broad array of "life studies" that had great effect on many people in very different institutional, communal, and public settings." -- Publisher's website."--Publisher's website (viewed 2018 June 19).