June Jordan's is an extraordinarily powerful voice. Power as a central theme in Jordan's work is accentuated by her speaking voice, which is forthright, resolute, searing, at times explosive and frightening. From the outset Jordan has been fascinated with language and with the search for an appropriate literary expression of strength. Of her original attraction to words, Jordan remarks: "Early on, the scriptural concept that 'in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God'--the idea that the word could represent and then deliver into reality what the word symbolized--this possibility of language, of writing, seemed to me magical and basic and irresistible. I really do mean 'early on': my mother carried me to the Universal Truth Center on 125th Street, every Sunday, before we moved from Manhattan. I must have been two years old, or three, when the distinctive belief...