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The music of language became extremely important to me, and obvious to me. By the time I was seven I was writing myself. I was a poet
June Jordan
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June Jordan
Age: 65 †
Born: 1936
Born: July 9
Died: 2002
Died: June 14
Essayist
Lgbtiq+ Rights Activist
Novelist
Poet
Writer
Harlem
New York
June Millicent Jordan
Music
Important
Poetic
Writing
Extremely
Time
Obvious
Seven
Became
Poet
Language
More quotes by June Jordan
Good poetry and successful revolution change our lives. And you cannot compose a good poem or wage a revolution without changing consciousness unless you attack the language that you share with your enemies and invent a language that you share with your allies.
June Jordan
That a little child will lead us back to the child we will always be, vulnerable and wanting and hurting for love and for beauty.
June Jordan
Poetry is a political act because it involves telling the truth.
June Jordan
To begin is no more agony than opening your hand.
June Jordan
and if i if i ever let love go because the hatred and the whisperings become a phantom dictate i o- bey in lieu of impulse and realities (the blossoming flamingos of my wild mimosa trees) then let love freeze me out. (from i must become a menace to my enemies)
June Jordan
We do not deride the fears of prospering white America. A nation of violence and private property has every reason to dread the violated and the deprived.
June Jordan
The United States Supreme Court, once a reliable if ultimate recourse for progressive and even revolutionary grievances, has become a retrograde wellspring for enormous economic and social distress.
June Jordan
To tell the truth is to become beautiful.
June Jordan
Overall, white men run America. From nuclear armaments to the filth and jeopardy of New York City subways to the cruel mismanagement of health care, is there anything to boast about?
June Jordan
In America, the traditional routes to black identity have hardly been normal. Suicide (disappearance by imitation, or willed extinction), violence (hysterical religiosity, crime, armed revolt), and exemplary moral courage none of these is normal.
June Jordan
What's important about poetry in the context of leadership is that most of the time, power has to do with dominance. But poetry is never about dominance. Poetry is powerful but it cannot even aspire to dominate anyone. It means making a connection. That's what it means.
June Jordan
In the name of motherhood and fatherhood and education and good manners, we threaten and suffocate and bind and ensnare and bribe and trick children into wholesale emulation of our ways.
June Jordan
The purpose of polite behavior is never virtuous. Deceit, surrender, and concealment these are not virtues. The goal of the mannerly is comfort, per se.
June Jordan
To believe is to become what you believe.
June Jordan
It means to educate myself incessantly about the world around me.
June Jordan
I think I have come to a place where I'm able to feel more comfortable about being honest.
June Jordan
I am the history of the rejection of who I am
June Jordan
Like running trying to live a good life has to hurt a little bit, or we're not running hard enough, not really trying.
June Jordan
My father was both the person who gave me reason to learn how to fight and the one who taught me the basics of fighting. He would tell me that if it was a big fight, it would probably be uneven, it wouldn't be fair
June Jordan
Americans have begun to understand that trouble does not start somewhere on the other side of town. It seems to originate inside the absolute middle of the homemade cherry pie.
June Jordan
