#directed by desire: the complete poems of june jordan | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

llovelymoonn · 16 days

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@floweroflaurelin \\ june jordan directed by desire: the complete poems of june jordan: "intifada incantation: poem #8 for b.b.l" \\ @destielgaysex

kofi

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weltenwellen · 5 months

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June Jordan, from "Intifada Incantation: Poem #8 for b.b.L.", Directed by Desire: The Complete Poems of June Jordan

#poetry #fr

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tenderbittersweet · 5 months

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Part One

Theodore Roethke, from “Straw for the fire.” // June Jordan, from “Intifada Incantation: Poem #8 for b.b.L.”, Directed by Desire: The Complete Poems of June Jordan // “landscape with a blur of conquerors,” richard siken // Natalie Wee, “our bodies & other fine machines” // Sam Sax, “hydrophobia”// Ocean Vuong, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous

#web weaving #bbc ghosts #ghosts uk #the captain #william havers #quotes #op

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dk-thrive · 18 days

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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

— June Jordan, Resolution #1,003 in "Directed by Desire: The Complete Poems of June Jordan (Copper Canyon Press, 2005, 2023). (via Poetry Foundation)

#June Jordan #love #hate #indifferent #hostile #passion

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plenilunada · 28 days

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Intifada Incantation: Poem #8 for b.b.L.

By June Jordan

I SAID I LOVED YOU AND I WANTED

GENOCIDE TO STOP

I SAID I LOVED YOU AND I WANTED AFFIRMATIVE

ACTION AND REACTION

I SAID I LOVED YOU AND I WANTED MUSIC

OUT THE WINDOWS

I SAID I LOVED YOU AND I WANTED

NOBODY THIRST AND NOBODY

NOBODY COLD

I SAID I LOVED YOU AND I WANTED I WANTED

JUSTICE UNDER MY NOSE

I SAID I LOVED YOU AND I WANTED

BOUNDARIES TO DISAPPEAR

I WANTED

NOBODY ROLL BACK THE TREES!

I WANTED

NOBODY TAKE AWAY DAYBREAK!

I WANTED

NOBODY FREEZE ALL THE PEOPLE ON THEIR

KNEES!

I WANTED YOU

I WANTED YOUR KISS ON THE SKIN OF MY SOUL

AND NOW YOU SAY YOU LOVE ME AND I STAND

DESPITE THE TRILLION TREACHERIES OF SAND

YOU SAY YOU LOVE ME AND I HOLD THE LONGING

OF THE WINTER IN MY HAND

YOU SAY YOU LOVE ME AND I COMMIT

TO FRICTION AND THE UNDERTAKING

OF THE PEARL

YOU SAY YOU LOVE ME

AND I HAVE BEGUN

I BEGIN TO BELIEVE MAYBE

MAYBE YOU DO

I AM TASTING MYSELF

IN THE MOUTH OF THE SUN

From Directed by Desire: The Complete Poems of June Jordan (2005)

#june jordan #intifada incantation #palestine will be free

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britneyshakespeare · 3 years

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june jordan is the greatest american poet

#it's always walt whitman or emily dickinson but from a range and technique perspective id say its hands down june jordan #directed by desire (her complete poems) is one of the best purchases ive made in 2020 #but i read it very slowly because i always have to put it down and think for awhile and go back and reread a piece #her skill w words was breathtaking. unique. once-in-several lifetimes.#june jordan #text post

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onetwofeb · 4 years

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I Must Become a Menace to My Enemies

by June Jordan

Dedicated to the Poet Agostinho Neto,

President of The People’s Republic of Angola: 1976

1

I will no longer lightly walk behind

a one of you who fear me:

Be afraid.

I plan to give you reasons for your jumpy fits

and facial tics

I will not walk politely on the pavements anymore

and this is dedicated in particular

to those who hear my footsteps

or the insubstantial rattling of my grocery

cart

then turn around

see me

and hurry on

away from this impressive terror I must be:

I plan to blossom bloody on an afternoon

surrounded by my comrades singing

terrible revenge in merciless

accelerating

rhythms

But

I have watched a blind man studying his face.

I have set the table in the evening and sat down

to eat the news.

Regularly

I have gone to sleep.

There is no one to forgive me.

The dead do not give a damn.

I live like a lover

who drops her dime into the phone

just as the subway shakes into the station

wasting her message

canceling the question of her call:

fulminating or forgetful but late

and always after the fact that could save or

condemn me

I must become the action of my fate.

2

How many of my brothers and my sisters

will they kill

before I teach myself

retaliation?

Shall we pick a number?

South Africa for instance:

do we agree that more than ten thousand

in less than a year but that less than

five thousand slaughtered in more than six

months will

WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH ME?

I must become a menace to my enemies.

3

And if I

if I ever let you slide

who should be extirpated from my universe

who should be cauterized from earth

completely

(lawandorder jerkoffs of the first the

terrorist degree)

then let my body fail my soul

in its bedeviled lecheries

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.

I must become

I must become a menace to my enemies.

from Things That I Do in the Dark (1977)

and from Directed by Desire. The Collected Poems of June Jordan.

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booksplease · 7 years

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The past few weeks I have been toying with the idea of getting an e-reader. Many of the books I need for my research and some of the books I want to read are located in and sold from places where shipping and handling charges are way over the price of the books themselves. I do understand the price of transport and duties; my interests though have weighed towards my meagre pocket as a PhD student. Selfish indeed!

When the newly launched Amazon.nl promised a ‘cheap’ Kindle Paperwhite via Amazon.de they got my attention. I realized, still the kit would land up being 145-euros-approx. If I signed up for a particular credit card I would be spared 30-euros. A concept I find disturbing and problematic. That I don’t subscribe to the idea of the credit card also adds to my dismay. How on earth am I ever going to keep track of the endless paper trails I drop each time I say yes to possess? What a tangled web we weave when we try to …. (apologies to the Gods of rhyme) try to live (albeit stylishly) within our means.

To add to this – I romanticize the physicality of books. Mea culpa! Sitting in the metro for long hours I often read, or look at the covers of books people are holding, fingers wrapped around paper, eyes darting, some slowly, others fast, a twitch of the lips, a gentle smile, a furrowed line in between the brows – I look for these signs. The language of these books might be different, the topics similar or dissimilar to my taste but in those rare quiet moments I feel a camaraderie. A kinship for those who seek stories and meaning; for those who travel via books in an inexplicable way travel together. E-readers (hence referred to as ERs), indeed, as well denote readership but in isolation, there is no cover peeking through gripped fingers. Thus, offering a privacy that crushes my romantic voyeurism.

ERs, as the publishing industry will argue, works besides and not as a binary opposition to books. Is this how selling out begins? I wonder what happens to the weight of books, carrying Shakespeare’s Sonnets back and forth to university my shoulders ached, my neck struggled, when I downloaded it on to the Kindle app on my phone it seemed to me that I belittled the text. My body asked me to shut up and accept the easy reading of the pixels, wasn’t the backlight in some of these readers meant to delay the formation of cataracts? Despite this, my heart rebels. Is there a strange value in physical weight? (What would the pundits of fashion say?).

I am not allergic to technology. At one point in time in my life I actually studied code (I know – it went the same way as Law School – that is for another day). I am fond of Apple products. I enjoy my HP laptop – bulky and old it has brought me great comfort. I play Candy Crush, and Candy Crush Soda. I blog. I have enjoyed my Moleskin notebooks as well as my Notes app on my iPhone – then why indeed does my heart ache just that bit more when it comes to ERs? And here is the epiphany I came to this morning while dusting my shelves – Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter jutted out – it was a book that belonged to my grandfather, later to my aunt, and then it came to me as I studied Literatures in English. Sons and Lovers, Mill on the Floss, Wuthering Heights, Complete Works of Saki, that old withered copy of Treasure Island that belonged to Purab when he was a wee lad, thumbed down and stained. And, as I touch their spines I feel connected. Odd that connectivity is enabled by technology yet these placid pages are not connected to any hyper networks, or are they? These books had lives, and were part of the lives of people I no longer have with me and of time that has passed.

I remind myself – besides – and not against. How many more shelves will I build? Roughly each wall in my house is either covered in bookshelves or relevant art. Will I be the last generation to appreciate the physical nature of the textbook? I run my fingers on Bambi’s Mercy Watson books, how he loves them, how he pours over his Grapes of Math – like I did – over Grapes of Wrath. I would hope not. But who knows – I am human – and only time holds answers. The knot remains so. As our receptionist shares with me an old volume of the photographs of the American Civil War, I appreciate what I have now – the cusp at which I find myself. Here and there. I gravitate towards that balance I need to find between my nurtured uneasiness and the organic path of publication evolution. Wish me luck.

Though it is not a binary opposition – for more information: click here

Edited to add: With the new billing options turns out Amazon will not allow me to buy certain e-books. I found the June Jordan collection of poems Directed by Desire on Google Play. Just for 7-euros, that too. Looks like using the computer via apps might give me the multi-platform flexibility I need. If you have any ideas / suggestions on this please email me or add to the comments section.

Is my uneasiness nurtured or organic? The past few weeks I have been toying with the idea of getting an e-reader. Many of the books I need for my research and some of the books I want to read are located in and sold from places where shipping and handling charges are way over the price of the books themselves.

#academia #antiques #Apoorva #bambi #books #connection #debate #ereaders #evolution #heart #history #mind #process #romantic #stains #technology #thought

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weltenwellen · 5 months

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June Jordan, "Intifada Incantation: Poem #8 for b.b.L.", Directed by Desire: The Complete Poems of June Jordan

#poetry

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weltenwellen · 5 months

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June Jordan, from "Intifada Incantation: Poem #8 for b.b.L.", Directed by Desire: The Complete Poems of June Jordan

#poetry #i

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weltenwellen · 5 months

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June Jordan, from "Intifada Incantation: Poem #8 for b.b.L.", Directed by Desire: The Complete Poems of June Jordan

#poetry

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weltenwellen · 5 months

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June Jordan, from "Intifada Incantation: Poem #8 for b.b.L.", Directed by Desire: The Complete Poems of June Jordan

#poetry

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