"June Jordan was not the blacksmith's daughter. June Jordan was the blacksmith... She never waited around, not for anyone's permission, to write or act or be... For this book to have its birth now, in the lopsided moment when we need it most, is no chance occurrence. This great woman blacksmith is still sweetly hammering us on. " --Nikky FinneyPoet, activist, and essayist June Jordan is a prolific, significant American writer who pushed the limits of political vision and moral witness, traversing a career of over forty years. With poetry, prose, letters, and more, this reader is a key resource for understanding the scope, complexity, and novelty of this pioneering Black American writer. From "Poem about Police Violence" Tell me somethingwhat you think would happen ifeverytime they kill a black boythen we kill a copeverytime they kill a black manthen we kill a copyou think the accident rate would lowersubsequently?... I lose consciousness of ugly bestial rabidand repetitive affront as when they tell me18 cops in order to subdue one man18 strangled him to death in the ensuing scuffle (don'tyou idolize the diction of the powerful: subdue andscuffle my oh my) and that the murderthat the killing of Arthur Miller on a Brooklynstreet was just a "justifiable accident" again(again)People been having accidents all over the globeso long like that I reckon that the onlysuitable insurance is a gun