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Directed by Desire: The Collected Poems of June Jordan

Poetry by June Jordan, ed. Jan Heller Levi and Sarah Miles

Copper Canyon Press, 2005 $40

Copper Canyon’s posthumous tribute to June Jordan’s verse, Directed by Desire: The Collected Poems of June Jordan, demonstrates the poet’s range was as varied as her experience. Spanning four decades, Desire samples portions of Jordan’s poetry revealing a voice that resists classification, despite her involvement with a wide range of causes.

In her “Preface” to Passion: New Poems, 1977-1980, Jordan objected to elitism, in which “great poems, Shakespeare included…are poisonous to the idea of pride and dignity of the common people.” Mimicking black English, feminist rhetoric, or satirical impressions of the upper-middle-class privileged, she often addressed timely issues in a direct and, at times, hilarious vernacular. Nonetheless, Jordan was as attuned to the poetic tradition—especially the lyric—as she was to the rhythms of protest. In “Let Me Live with Marriage,” she responds directly to Shakespeare’s 116th sonnet—albeit in a context alien to Shakespeare: “I am black within/ as is this skin/ without one pore/ to bleed a pale defense…” Here Shakespeare’s infamous “Dark Lady” is re-imagined literally, as is the Renaissance fixation on bodily humors.

In spite of—or because of—such contradictions, Jordan’s poems are marked by an unmistakable energy. In “Poem about My Rights,” private and public concern weaves seamlessly through incantatory rhythms that demonstrate how personal experience is structurally similar to the political: “in France they say if a guy penetrates/ but does not ejaculate then he did not rape me…which is exactly like South Africa/ penetrating into Namibia penetrating into/ Angola…” The insight develops alternately through confession and observation in language alternately intense and comical, sincere and sarcastic.

Not every Jordan poem succeeds. As Adrienne Rich admits in the foreword to Directed, “Some of her long declamatory poems, specific to certain moments or written for public occasions, don’t survive on the page absent the vibrancy of her live breath and bodily presence.” Thankfully, Jordan was accomplished in a number of styles. Whether she shows an appreciation for Imagism, or offers spirited cries of protest or renders the absurdities of post-colonial politics with tongue-in-cheek, Jordan tells time and again “about the howling/and the loss.”