Today is June Jordan’s birthday. “it’s because it’s on” comes from the introduction to her book of essays, Civil Wars. she is the one! she is the one who told me that it’s on. i’d felt it before, been restored by it. i didn’t know there were words for it.
i forget that it’s on. sometimes it feels so off, you know? but i’m beginning to be okay with that. i’m beginning to be okay with that because how exhilarating to remember; how stunning to be reminded in so many simple and gorgeous and affronting ways, all over again, it’s on.
snippets from her poems, her particular rhythm and intonation, return to me, they tug, leave me speechless. this kind of awe is a lifeline. lines like hers are lifelines.
Hanif Abdurraqib, at an event celebrating her poetry last fall called her “the bar for living your work.” what she asked of and brought out of language she also asked of,and brought out of so many people; as in, can’t we do better than cruelty? can’t we be more loving? can’t we offer more than our american inheritance? she was serious about love. she lived it and she wrote it. she acted as if love is the animating force. she told us that Love is Life Force.1 love one word close to the ‘it’ that is ‘on.’
of her own work she wrote “you meet with a reverence for the material world that begins with a reverence for human life, an intellectual trust in sensuality”2
respect and rejoice she did; renew herself at the fountain she did. may we be this sensual in her honor. may we adhere to love, act like it’s life force. Happy Birthday June, it’s still on.