'These Poems - are you ready?'

 

“Poetry is a political act because it involves telling the truth.” – June Jordan

The daughter of Jamaican immigrants, Jordan was born in Harlem on this date in 1936.  In her relatively short lifetime (she died of illness in 2002), she was the recipient of  dozens of writing honors, including a Rockefeller grant, a National Endowment for the Arts poetry fellowship, and an Achievement Award for International Reporting.

 

Often called "The Poet of the People," she founded the “Poetry for the People” program at UC-Berkeley with the goal of empowering students to use poetry as a means of artistic expression.  For Saturday’s Poem, here is Jordan’s,

 

 

These Poems

 

These poems
they are things that I do
in the dark
reaching for you
whoever you are
and
are you ready?

                                                

These words
they are stones in the water
running away

These skeletal lines
they are desperate arms for my longing and love.

I am a stranger
learning to worship the strangers
around me

whoever you are
whoever I may become.