Defiance: The Message of June Jordan

In June Jordan’s Poem about My Rights, she rails against many forms of injustice. She preaches against racism, sexism, imperialism, and the American government - in one fell swoop. The way she does so, seamlessly, is quite marvelous. One of the tactics she uses is taking a literal concept from one part of the poem and using it as a simile in another part of the poem. Early in the poem, she says “in France they say if the guy penetrates but does not ejaculate then he did not rape me,” speaking of actual rape. A few lines later she uses those same rape and ejaculation images to describe “South Africa penetrating into Namibia penetrating into Angola and does that mean I mean how do you know if Pretoria ejaculates.” Essentially, she is equating South Africa’s pillaging of neighboring countries to rape. This leads to another way by which Jordan grabs the reader’s attention. She uses such forceful, and even obscene, language, that it is impossible to turn away. How can one turn away when she writes “even after smashing a hammer to his head...he and his buddies fuck me..then I consented and there was no rape.” Somehow, she makes these images seem so real! According to The Poetry Foundation website, Jordan was abused by her father, abandoned by her mother, and was the only black person at her school during one of the most racist eras in American history. I believe that the realistic feel to this poem, and all June Jordan poems, stems from her having deep personal knowledge of suffering and oppression.

Metaphors are another tool that Jordan uses exceedingly well. To me, the most powerful lines in the poem are “I am the history of rape I am the history of the rejection of who I am I am the history of the terrorized incarceration of my self...

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... that fashion. The truth is that it would be an injustice to act as if such sexism no longer exists. There is still a pervading culture of sexism. Many people believe that a woman’s position should be that of a homemaker, cook, cleaning lady, sex object. To hell with all of that, Jordan says. Each one of us should define who we are on our terms - only on our terms.

As mentioned earlier, Jordan uses forceful and aggressive language, but combines the aggression with thought-provoking metaphors, images and similes. This combination is what makes Poem about My Rights stand out to me. The images and metaphors add a touch of eloquence to, what would have otherwise been thought of as, a hateful rant. The combination keeps readers fixated. It is as if she was hammering away at our collective consciousness with a surgeon’s scalpel - blunt force, but with elegant precision.