SOURCE: DeVeaux, Alexis. “Creating Soul Food: June Jordan.” Essence 11 (April, 1981) 82, 138-50.

In the following essay, DeVeaux remarks the impact of Jordan's youth on her beliefs about poetry.

After searching through the pockets and corners of Liberation Bookstore in Harlem some years back, I bought a book as a gift for my younger sister. I flipped through it and saw jubilant, shoulders-back/stomach-in words striding across pages. The mighty march of words—so Black, so proud and full of hallelujah—formed one searing question: who look at me?

I cannot remember nor imagine pretty people treat me like a doublejointed stick 

WHO LOOK AT ME                     WHO SEE 

the tempering sweetness of a little girl who wears her first pair of earrings and a red dress 

The next month I bought June Jordan's book Who Look at Me for myself. I memorized the lyric, the blues/sonata of the narrative...