Poem about My Rights

A powerful political statement, June Jordan’s “Poem About My Rights” was first published in 1978 and reprinted in a collection of her work, Directed by Desire: The Collected Poems of June Jordan, in 2005 (Copper Canyon Press). The poem is a lengthy free verse piece with no distinct form, rhyme, or meter. “Poem About My Rights” can be seen as an important representation of Jordan’s intentions as a poet as well as an illustration of themes permeating her larger body of work.

In this poem, Jordan explores the connections between intersecting marginalized identities and the larger political landscape in which a person is located. Despite being originally written and published in the late 1970s, “Poem About My Rights”—like much of Jordan’s poetic work—is hailed as a piece that can also relate to contemporary readers dealing with violence and marginalization based on their race, gender, sexual orientation, or socioeconomic status.

Content Note: “Poem About My Rights” contains multiple instances of graphic language describing rape; this study guide, therefore, also contains descriptions of sexual assault and/or violence as needed to summarize and analyze the poem.

Poet Biography

June Jordan is one of the most highly awarded American poets in the 20th century; over the course of her career, she published numerous books of poetry, essays, and children’s stories. Born July 9, 1936, Jordan was raised in Harlem and then Brooklyn, New York. In high school, Jordan began attending a prestigious predominantly white boarding school; she next pursued a bachelor’s degree from Barnard College. After twice switching colleges, Jordan eventually graduated from Barnard. Much of Jordan’s work deals with her identity and experiences; she proudly identified as a Black bisexual woman.

Along with her career as an author, Jordan consistently engaged in education, both as a professor and activist. In 1967, Jordan began her teaching career at the City College of New York. Over the next two decades, she taught at Yale University, Sarah Lawrence College, SUNY at Stony Brook, and the University of California Berkeley. Jordan also founded the “Poetry for the People” program at UC Berkeley in 1991; writing from the students in this program was published alongside Jordan’s reflections in 1995.

Over the course of her career, Jordan was recognized as a political force with whom to be reckoned—both in her poetry and her community work. Jordan advocated for the rights of all people, especially Black people; she is known for her efforts to center Black English as a language to be taught and valued. Recognition for her contributions include multiple prestigious fellowships from organizations like the National Endowment for the Arts (1982) and the New York Foundation for the Arts (1985), as well as awards like the Achievement Award for International Reporting from the National Association of Black Journalists (1984) and A Ground Breakers-Dream Makers Award from the Woman’s Foundation (1994).

Though Jordan died in 2002, she posthumously continues receiving recognition, including two new publications and an award at the National LGBTQ Wall of Honor at the Stonewall National Monument (2019).

Poem Text

Jordan, June. “Poem About My Rights.” 2005. Poetry Foundation.

Summary

The opening lines of “Poem About My Rights” describes the speaker's frustration about not being able to “take a walk and clear / my head” (Lines 1-2) without being worried about her body. The speaker names several aspects of identity limiting her freedom: “I am the wrong / sex the wrong age the wrong skin” (Lines 8-9). The speaker doesn’t feel safe going out alone because of her identity as a woman, her age, and her race, among other characteristics.

As the poem continues, the speaker demands to know “who in the hell set things up / like this” (Lines 21-22); the interrogative statement is followed by a summary of a law in France that says, “if the guy penetrates / but does not ejaculate then he did not rape me” (Lines 23-24). The stream-of-consciousness narrative continues to describe how the speaker is “wrong again to be me being me where I was” (Line 32) and connects her experience with countries in Africa that have experienced colonization and war. The speaker then ties the countries into contemporary events: the CIA murdering political figures in the 1960s. The poem moves into a description of the speaker’s father being out of place “on the campus / of [her] Ivy League school” (Lines 52-53), which is immediately followed by childhood memories of her father wishing the speaker was a boy.

The disparate images of the preceding lines are tied together as the poem moves towards a boiling point. The speaker describes her familiarity with “the problems of the C.I.A. / and the problems of South Africa and the problems / of […] my particular Mom and Dad” (Lines 68-73). The poem reaches a peak as the speaker determines that “the problems / turn out to be / me” (Lines 74-76) and describes her own identity as being the “history” (Lines 77-79, 81) of all of these violent or oppressive acts.

The denouement of the poem is about how the speaker has experienced being “the meaning of rape” (Line 98) both as her own individual self and in her understanding of global social issues. The closing lines of the poem show the speaker claiming her own self and confidence, describing her name as her “own” (Line 110). In the final statement, the speaker says, “from now on my resistance / my simple and daily and nightly self-determination / may very well cost you your life” (Lines 112-14). This conclusion connects to the title of the poem: The speaker is claiming her rights regardless of whether the world respects her.