[In the following review, Boyd discusses the influence of Whitman evident in Jordan's Passion.]

In the preface of June Jordan's latest book of poetry, Passion, the poet acclaims Walt Whitman as the Great White Father of American poetry. She explains she has most recently realized his significance because during her academic preparation, Whitman was overlooked and obscured by the establishment literati of eastern universities. I suppose this is possibly true of some educational experiences, but it's difficult to imagine.

At any rate, this revelation about Whitman has sharply altered Jordan's cultural acceptance of progressive White American poetry. She says, "What Whitman envisioned we, the people and the poets of the New World, embody. He has been punished for the political meaning of his vision. We are being punished for the moral questions that our very lives provoke."

June Jordan was a poet of the sixties, or the Black Arts Movement—Renaissance II. These writers were strong nationalists who were sometimes too quick to categorically dismiss English and American writers into a ruble of racist reactionaries who articulated the insensitive values and attitudes of a repressive ruling culture. This active resistance to prevent the europeanization of her art was a necessary divorce from the dominant culture, incorporating their rhythms, and their tones in the expressions of pain, joy and frustration. But many of those Black writers totally succumbed to this artistic separation, and are still beleaguering a cultural position that produces inflated images and flat, predictable language confined to the limited dimensions of the obvious and the overstated.

Jordan has taken the initiative to identify the restrictions of the reactions of the cultural separatists, and thereby re-examines the validity of those White American writers who have contributed to New World poetry and sung from the true democratic spirit that is particularly American in character and style. By resurrecting Whitman, Jordan hopes to identify him as a thematic constituency of Black American Literature and thereby justify her acceptance of him. Such a stance may not be readily approved by her peers. However, in support of her move, let me remind the Nationalists that the poetic voice of Whitman was the voice of the Abolitionists, and the New Marxists should review Whitman as a working class writer in touch with reality and humane ideals.

But, I'm not sure Passion is the best title for the poems. The motion and meaning of the poetry do not always swing deep enough for a passionate encounter. Rather, they are often too direct, too pointed and too typical of the propagandistic personality of Black poetry of the sixties. The lines are too familiar and they collapse on the ear. And unlike Whitman, her vision is often circumvented by anger and impatience. In "Poem About Police Violence," she writes:

     Tell me something
     what you think would happen if
     everytime they kill a black boy
     then we kill a cop
     everytime they kill a black man
     then we kill a cop
 
     you think the accident rate would lower
     subsequently?

One of the interesting aspects of Jordan's poetry is that she writes in both Standard English and Black dialect. She writes in the language of the people and still takes advantage of the flexible linguistic structure of the standard. When the speed of thought and the intensity of emotion increases, she drops the "do" and the weight and emphasis of the statement fall on __. But passion is the thrust of the book, and at peak moments, the love poetry is breathtaking.

   You said, "In Morocco they make
         deliberate mistakes."
         Next to you I do nothing
         to perfect my safety
 
         How should I dispel
         the soul of such agile excitation?
 
                                (from "Night Letters")

Her use of oblique rhyme ("mistakes" and "safety") and the interplay of fricatives, plosives, and sibilants create a soft tone that generates feeling of the poem. When Jordan sustains this rounded perspective in her political poems, it insulates and expands the themes.

     I am a woman searching for her savagery
     even if it's doomed
     Where are the Indians?

In "Poem for Nana," Jordan lifts the raw history of America and searches for some truth hidden in the unwritten. She fondles a few lines with Native American imagery and makes you feel the spirit of our ancestors who died on the Trail of Tears.

     the people of the sacred trees
     and rivers precious to the stars that told
     old stories to the night

"Poem About My Rights" is probably the most passionate poem in the book. She leaves nothing out.

    as I need to be
    alone because I can't do what I want to do with my
    own body and
    who in the hell set things up
    like this

She traces the outrage of racism and sexism by connecting rape and apartheid to legal definitions that defend these injustices perpetrated by political and economic control.

      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

This poem moves with incisive rhythm and intricate interplay of metaphors and absurdities that are appropriate to reality. The poem is inspired by her anger, but the energy enraptures the images and compounds the meaning. When Jordan writes like this, we can feel her tearing open wounds. Such a voice is so valuable when most White American poetry has retreated to the obscurity of confessional kvetch (insensitive suspension); and when most Black American poetry is a faint call caught in a quagmire of self adoration (victim poems). Meanwhile, the world is shrinking and so is the time and space we're living in.

When June Jordan begins from a personal base and then intertwines the complexities and despair of human frustration and dilemma, her writing carries a stronger sense of identity and purpose. This is when she is attuned to the New World voices, not just the Black ones, or the Brown ones or the inbetween ones. Unlike those words nurtured in the skull of a disembodied history, these powers echo Whitman and the earth and sky that gives art life.