...This volume of verse displays the undeniable legacy June Jordan left on both our literature and culture. Collected here are blazing examples of poetry as activism, stanzas that speak truth to power and speak out against violence against women and police brutality. But Jordan also speaks on the significance of hope, mixing, as Brown puts it, 'the doom and devastation made mundane through media with the hard decision to love anyway.'--emO, The Oprah Magazineem p emThe Essential June Jordanem honors the enduring legacy of a poet fiercely dedicated to building a better world. In this definitive volume, introduced by Pulitzer Prize winner Jericho Brown, June Jordan's generous body of poetry is distilled and curated to represent the very best of her works. Written over the span of several decades--from em Some Changesem in 1971 to emLast Poemsem in 2001---Jordan's poems are at once of their era and tragically current, with subject matter including racist police brutality, violence against