Haruko/Love Poems (High Risk Books) [Paperback]

June Jordan (Author), Adrienne Rich (Preface)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1, 1993 | Series: High Risk Books

For Haruko

Little moves on sight
blinded by histories
as trivial or expansive
as the rain
seducing light
into a blurred excitement

Then
she opens
all of one eye
as accurate as longing
as two hands beholden to the hunger of green leaves

and
rinsing them back
into regular breath
she who sees
she frees each of these
beggarly events
cleansing them
of dust and other death

Poem about Process
And Progress
For Haruko

Hey Baby you betta
hurry it up!
Because
since you went totally
off
I seen a full moon
I seen a half moon
I seen a quarter moon
I seen no moon whatsoever!

I seen a equinox
I seen a solstice
I seen Mars and Venus on a line
I seen a mess a fickle stars
and lately
I seen this new kind a luva
on an' off the telephone
who like to talk to me
all the time

real nice

Resolution # 1,003

I will love who loves me
I will love as much as I am loved
I will hate who hates me
I will feel nothing for everyone oblivious to me
I will stay indifferent to indifference
I will live hostile to hostility
I will make myself a passionate and eager lover
In response to passionate and eager love

I will be nobody's fool

Foreword

WHAT IS THIS thing called love, in the poems of June Jordan, artist, teacher, social critic, visionary of human solidarity? First of all, it's a motive; the power Che Guevara was trying to invoke in his much-quoted assertion: "At the risk of appearing ridiculous . . . the true revolutionary is moved by great feelings of love." I think also of Paul Nizan: "You think you are innocent if you say, 'I love this woman and I want to act in accordance with my love,' but you are beginning the revolution. . . . You will be driven back: to claim the right to a human act is to attack the forces responsible for all the misery in the world." Neither of them, admittedly, was claiming the love of a woman for women, the love of a man for men, as revolutionary, as a human act.

But the motive is "directed by desire" in Jordan

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This latest offering by Jordan ( Naming Our Destiny ) begins with a series of poems written in 1991 and 1992 to Haruko, her female lover. What strikes one here is the absolute fragility of love, the premonitions of future loss that invade the speaker's present. "Then how should I / subsist / without the benediction of our bodies / intertwined / or why?" she asks. Never answered, the question will be posed again and again with slight variations as if, in the act of writing, one finds continuance. Moving on to love poems culled from four previous volumes, the reader senses Jordan's full range. Not only is heterosexual love given its due, but one poem seems to capture the transitional moment when the speaker wavers between her love for men and the newfound possibility of loving women. Jordan's writing is sensual and hard-edged at the same time, insisting that passion exists among commonplace objects. By beginning a poem with "but," Jordan makes one feel as if one has entered a room mid-conversation and is immediately included and welcome. Her throbbing, relentless rhythm is so effective that readers find themselves mouthing the words. It's impossible to sit silently back.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

When a major poet brings forth an entire book consisting of love poems, it is a true cause for celebration. Jordan, one of the most important poets writing today, gives us a richly magnificent collection of poems that describes her love experiences as an African American woman. She writes of the joys, obsessions, attachments, yearnings, sharings, disappointments, and rage attendant upon loving relationships; the reader feels her own love connections and their related emotions rekindled. The volume begins with a warmly passionate but frequently angry series of poems written in the early 1990s to "Haruko." Jordan's romantic lyricism is captivating, but as love is met with rejection, the language turns livid, rigid: "an ending to my love/ for you/ will stretch its scaly/ full length into light." The final half of the book consists of love poems selected from the last 20 years of Jordan's career by Adrienne Rich (who has graced the volume with a sensitive foreword) and Sara Miles. Many of these poems have appeared in previous volumes of Jordan's poetry (most recently Living Room, Thunder's Mouth, 1985). "Thanks," she concludes, "to every lover for the everlasting mystery." Highly recommended.
- Judy Clarence, California State Univ. Lib., Hayward
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 140 pages
• Publisher: Serpent's Tail (February 1, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1852423234
• ISBN-13: 978-1852423230
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,551,657 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Heartbeat of a Lover's Soul, March 4, 2000

By 

"kulturvultur" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Haruko/Love Poems (High Risk Books) (Paperback)

June Jordan's poetry beats furiously in the name of love: for Haruko, for life, for real. Since the human language is inadequate to truly express this emotion, Jordan manipulates and bends the written word to fit the human heart. When she describes love as "yes directed by desire" ("When I or Else"), she speaks the living truth.

Read "Free Flight", "Roman Poem Number Five" and "12:01 A.M." and let her words reverberate in your every mental crevice. Let your feelings stir as hers until you see with love's eyes. That is the definition of poetry.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars broth for the modern soul, March 22, 2001

By 

"joystjohn" (Huntsville, AL USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Haruko/Love Poems (High Risk Books) (Paperback)

This is simply a swell collections of poems. Some are sweet, others painful. All are provoking.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars This book is damn good., October 11, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Haruko/Love Poems (High Risk Books) (Paperback)

This book is blood, sweat and tears. It is the sweet succulence of love. Her poetry is bitter and rich.