“ I am a feminist, and what that means to me is much the same as the meaning of the fact that I am Black: it means that I must undertake to love myself and to respect myself as though my very life depen… June Jordan
“ But, based on my friendship with Evie as young mothers, I started going on freedom rides in 1966. June Jordan
“ So, poetry becomes a means for useful dialogue between people who are not only unknown, but mute to each other. It produces a dialogue among people that guards all of us against manipulation by our so… June Jordan
“ The courts cannot garnish a father's salary, nor freeze his account, nor seize his property on behalf of his children, in our society. Apparently this is because a kid is not a car or a couch or a boa… June Jordan
“ The first function of poetry is to tell the truth, to learn how to do that, to find out what you really feel and what you really think. June Jordan
“ That attitude that fighting is probably not fair, but you have to defend yourself anyway and damage the enemy, has been profoundly consequential as far as my political activism goes. June Jordan
“ 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
“ And I got to thinking about the moral meaning of memory, per se. And what it means to forget, what it means to fail to find and preserve the connection with the dead whose lives you, or I, want or nee… June Jordan
“ In the process of telling the truth about what you feel or what you see, each of us has to get in touch with himself or herself in a really deep, serious way. June Jordan
“ Bisexuality means I am free and I am as likely to want to love a woman as I am likely to want to love a man, and what about that? Isn't that what freedom implies? June Jordan
“ There are two ways to worry words. One is hoping for the greatest possible beauty in what is created. The other is to tell the truth. June Jordan
“ A man is not a tree'...If we remain where we start from we will neither grow nor flourish. June Jordan
“ I wrote those poems for myself, as a way of being a soldier here in this country. I didn't know the poems would travel. I didn't go to Lebanon until two years ago, but people told me that many Arabs h… June Jordan
“ ... mommahelp meturn the face of historyto your face.- Getting Down To Get Over - Dedicated To My Mother June Jordan
“ And if iif i ever let love gobecause the hatred and the whisperingsbecome a phantom dictate i o-bey in lieu of impulse and realities(the blossoming flamingos of mywild mimosa trees)then let love freez… June Jordan
