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June Jordan's Poetry for the People: A Revolutionary Blueprint

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Lauren Muller, editor, gently persuades a talented crew from June Jordan's Poetry for the People classes at UC Berkely, to tell the rest of us how they do it--run poetry workshops and readings that literally transform their participants and audiences. The book provides college and communityteachers with an accessible plan for poetry workshops, including syllabii, bibliographies, thoughtful meditations on the teaching and writingof poetry, and a rich sampling of poems. It's a tribute not only to the power of the word but also to the solid principle that teaching, like popular theater, is one of the democratic art forms that can revolutionize the way we think and how we live in community.

I stumbled on this book when I was looking for new resources for good poems to read for Black History Month. Flipping through it, I found it instantly engaging, so I had no problem buying it on the spot.

It went on the stack of 'next time you're looking for something interesting to read' and had to wait for me to finish a few books of poetry, as well as Ted Kooser's Poetry Home Repair Manual. I felt some sort of irrational loyalty to the new Poet Laureate. But Kooser is good; very good. He made me think through everything that I write -- carefully, critically -- and my spirit was quickly wilting. I needed an antidote; or, more precisely, a complement, a little yin to counterbalance the substantial yang of Kooser's superb book. June Jordan was the very thing.

Reading it is a joy. Thinking through how to teach people to write poetry that speaks to the truth of their world, their experience, and how to bring it to the public -- all the grub with the glory, so to speak -- with June Jordan and her students was pure pleasure. And I couldn't argue with the results -- which are generously sprinkled throughout the book, with an extra dollop at the end. Poetry, the craft and how to sell it.

I have to mention that one thing that initially attracted me to Poetry for the People was the memory that Jordan had recently died (in 2002, I believe). I'm in the habit of reading a book by an author when they die as a sort of memorial, an extended meditation on their contribution and general mutability, if you will. We lost a great one when we lost June Jordan; but she was responsible enough to leave a substantial legacy, so the net loss is negligible. It's ours because she wanted it to be.

Even if you don't teach poetry writing, you will love this book if you're a writer of politically conscious poetry or if you care about how good poetry gets written. With the popularity of Slam poetry these days, this is a very useful primer. It includes poems from different cultural backgrounds about a range of racial, social, and gender issues. It also provides lists of suggested readings that go beyond the narrow range of poetry books found in mainstream bookstores.

This book, based on the experience of students and poets involved with June Jordan's popular UCal/Berkeley poetry courses, is a handbook for people who want to put poetry in the mouths and pens of "The People," everybody -- whether in the university or in a community setting such as a coffeehouse or church. The "white male" poetry of the "canon" is here put in its rightful place as but one of the several American poetry traditions, which also include African American, Caribbean, Native American, Asian American, Chicano/a, gay and lesbian, women's, and Irish American poetry, for which beginning bibliographies are supplied, as is a sample syllabus and an anthology of student poetry.

This book is an outline for how to recreate the late June Jordan's revolutionary poetry class at UC Berkeley. From how to organize, to how to pick a curriculum and run a workshop, to how to kick off a reading and publish a class chapbook, this volume recreates the process that will allow you to teach poetry to a broad cross-section of the population. And not just at a university, either: the book describes how this same process, with minor amendments, was used in public schools and in an area church. I can imagine this same blueprint being used to teach poetry in a community center, a long-term care home, or a prison with similar good effect.

And even if you're not inclined to teach, there is a great deal of information in this book that will help you learn how to write. Jordan inserts her guidelines for revision, self-critique, self-publicity, and other skills a working poet will need. Whether you want to work with others or alone, this book will open your eyes to the ways poets improve their art.

There is even a healthy selection of poetry that poets and teachers of poetry should take a look at. Categorized according to racial, social, sexual, and other lines, it will allow you to build a library that represents a cross-section of verse as it is written in America today. The list is a little out of date, having been written in 1995, but if you have access to a good library, or even time to look around Amazon.com, you should be able to bring the selection up to date for your own writing.

The book isn't without problems. In the reading selection, the "White Male" section seems to stop with the death of Robert Frost, as though no white men have written poetry, or none worth mentioning, for the last 45 years. Some of the poetry from the class is very confessional, sometimes at the expense of quality, so there are poems which seem less like poetry amd more like airing dirty laundry in public. And the social outlook of the book is very urban-centered, as though if you don't live in a world surrounded by urban sprawl and drenched in media, you can't write or perform poetry.

But on balance, even a rural white male poet with nothing to confess will have a great deal to gain from this book. From how to edit yourself to how to organize with other poets to how to publish and publicize, there is a great deal you'll be able to take away and apply to your own poetry and your own community. A must-have for all poets who aspire to work in a serious and committed manner, and for poetry teachers who want to do more than just copy-edit their students' work.