We're On: A June Jordan Reader - Christoph Keller

nJune Jordan was not the blacksmith's daughter. June Jordan was the blacksmith. . . . She never waited around, not for anyone's permission, to write or act or be. . . . For this book to have its birth now, in the lopsided moment when we need it most, is no chance occurrence. This great woman blacksmith is still sweetly hammering us on. --Nikky FinneyPoet, 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 nwhat you think would happen if neverytime they kill a black boy nthen we kill a cop neverytime they kill a black man nthen we kill a cop nyou think the accident rate would lower nsubsequently? n. . .I lose consciousness of ugly bestial rabid nand repetitive affront as when they tell me n18 cops in order to subdue one man n18 strangled him to death in the ensuing scuffle (don't nyou idolize the diction of the powerful: subdue and nscuffle my oh my) and that the murder nthat the killing of Arthur Miller on a Brooklyn nstreet was just a justifiable accident again n(again)People been having accidents all over the globe nso long like that I reckon that the only nsuitable insurance is a gun n nJune Jordan was not the blacksmith's daughter. June Jordan was the blacksmith. . . . She never waited around, not for anyone's permission, to write or act or be. . . . For this book to have its birth now, in the lopsided moment when we need it most, is no chance occurrence. This great woman blacksmith is still sweetly hammering us on. --Nikky FinneyPoet, 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 nwhat you think would happen if neverytime they kill a black boy nthen we kill a cop neverytime they kill a black man nthen we kill a cop nyou think the accident rate would lower nsubsequently? n. . .I lose consciousness of ugly besti