‘we are the ones we have been waiting for’

These poems of radical love, urgency and global consciousness reach across borders to break open the silence of oppression and the taboo, liberating both body and soul.

Lively and enigmatic, Passion is June Jordan’s most accomplished and animated collection. Her virtuosic, resolute words have inspired generations of readers and activists across the world, from Nobel Laureates to US Presidents. 

In trailblazing poet, essayist, teacher and activist June Jordan's poems, love is a vision of revolutionary solidarity, crossing borders both emotional and literal with an outstretched hand. Haruko traces the faltering arc of a passionate love affair with another woman while Love Poems encompasses relationships with men and women, political resistance, the need for self-care in a demanding, uncaring world and apocalyptic visions of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius that destroyed Pompeii and Herculaneum. A contemporary of Alice Walker, Toni Morrison and Audre Lorde, June Jordan's spectacular poetry remains profoundly politically potent, lyrically inventive and breathtakingly romantic. First published in 1994, Haruko/ Love Poems is a vitally important modern classic.

"Directed by Desire . . . is a powerful addition to the entire canon of American poetry."-Booklist

Now in paperback, 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?

The cloth edition of Directed by Desire was selected as a Library Journal Poetry Book of the Year and received the Lambda Book Award for Lesbian Poetry.

June Jordan taught at UC Berkeley for many years and founded Poetry for the People. Her twenty-eight books include poetry, essays, fiction, and children's books. She was a regular columnist for The Progressive and a prolific writer whose articles appeared in The Village Voice, The New York Times, Ms. Magazine, and The Nation. After her death in 2002, a school in the San Francisco School District was renamed in her honor.

A meditation on the private and public fault lines which divide American society. In Civil Wars, June Jordan's battleground is the intersection of private and public reality, which she explores through a blending of personal reflection and political analysis. From journal entries on the line between poetry and politics and a discussion of language and power in "White" versus "Black" English, to First Amendment issues, children's rights, Black studies, American violence, and sexuality, Jordan documents the very personal ways in which she meshes with the social issues of modern-day life in this country.

The definitive introduction to the work of 'the bravest of us . . . the universal poet' (Alice Walker) For the poet and activist June Jordan, neither poetry nor activism could easily be disentangled from the other. Her storied career came to chronicle a living, breathing history of the struggles that defined the USA in the latter half of the twentieth century; and her poetry, accordingly, put its dazzling stylistic range to use in exploring issues of gender, race, immigration, representation and much else besides. Here, above all, are sinuous, lashing and passionate lines, virtuosic in their musicality and always bearing the stamp of Jordan's irrepressible personality. Here are poems of suffusing light and profound anger: poems moved as much by political animus as by a deep love for the observation of human life in all its foibles, eccentricities, strengths and weaknesses. With a foreword by Pulitzer Prize winner Jericho Brown, The Essential June Jordan allows new readers to discover - and old fans to rediscover - the vital work of this endlessly surprising poet who, in the words of Adrienne Rich, believed that 'genuine, up-from-the-bottom revolution must include art, laughter, sensual pleasure, and the widest possible human referentiality.'

"This June Jordan treasure is a rare piece of fiction from one of America's most vital poets and political essayists--a tender story of young love in the face of generational opposition, a modern-day "Romeo and Juliet" that sings and sways."--Walter Mosley

"There must be bridges if we are to reach our young. His Own Where promises to be one."--"New York Times Book Review" (1971)

Nominated for a National Book Award in 1971, "His Own Where" is the story of Buddy, a fifteen-year-old boy whose world is spinning out of control. He meets Angela, whose angry parents accuse her of being "wild." When life falls apart for Buddy and his father, and when Angela is attacked at home, they take action to create their own way of staying alive in Brooklyn. In the process, the two find refuge in one another and learn that love is real and necessary. "His Own Where" was one of "The New York Times"' Most Outstanding Books and was on the American Library Association's list of Best Books in 1971.

June Jordan was a poet, essayist, journalist, dramatist, activist, and educator known for challenging oppression through her inspirational words and actions. She was the founder of Poetry for the People at the University of California, Berkeley, where she taught for many years. The author of over twenty books, her poetry is collected in "Directed by Desire"; her selected essays in "Some of Us Did Not Die."

Sapphire is the author of "American Dreams," "Black Wings & Blind Angels," and "Push, " which has been made into a motion picture called "Precious."

This volume is a complete collection of June Jordan's columns for The Progressive, published between 1989 and 2001. Jordan (1936-2002) was a poet and UC Berkeley professor who is celebrated as a great human rights activist and social critic. Through her work, she taught a concept of "life as activism," based on inclusiveness, consistency, honesty, and identification with the oppressed. Far from being a purely idealistic and unsustainable approach to life, Jordan demonstrated that "life as activism" can be a way of engaging with the world that is accessible to all people who are committed to social justice. The writings collected here can be read as a road map to such a life of activism. These columns provide a critical study of important issues from the end of the twentieth century, as well as a clear illustration of the intersections of many forms of injustice and oppression, celebrating a movement away from single-issue politics to a far-reaching activism.

Black poets from the early twentieth century and onward come together for a moving anthology, edited and organized by the late, revered poet June Jordan.
First published in 1970, "soulscript is a poignant, panoramic collection of poetry from some of the most eloquent voices in the art. Selected for their literary excellence and by the dictates of Jordan's heart, these works tell the story of both collective and personal experiences, in Jordan's words, "in tears, in rage, in hope, in sonnet, in blank/free verse, in overwhelming rhetorical scream."
"Soulscript features works by Jordan and other luminaries like Gwendolyn Brooks, Countee Cullen, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Nikki Giovanni, Langston Hughes, Gayl Jines, James Weldon Johnson, Audre Lorde, Claude McKay, Ishmael Reed, Sonia Sanchez, and Richard Wright, as well as the fresh voices of a turbulent era's younger writers. Celebrated spoken-word poet Staceyann Chin, an original cast member of "Def Poetry Jam on Broadway, has also added an introduction that speaks to Jordan's legacy, helping to further cement "soulscript as a visionary compilation that has already become a modern classic.