American - Writer | July 9, 1936 - June 14, 2002
I am a feminist, and what that means to me is much the same as the meaning of the fact that I am Black: it means that I must undertake to love myself and to respect myself as though my very life depends upon self-love and self-respect.
June Jordan
LifeLoveRespectMyselfI AmMe
Language is political. That's why you and me, my Brother and Sister, that's why we supposed to choke our natural self into the weird, lying, barbarous, unreal, white speech and writing habits that the schools lay down like holy law.
BrotherMeLawSisterWritingSelf
To tell the truth is to become beautiful, to begin to love yourself, value yourself. And that's political, in its most profound way.
LoveTruthBeautifulYourselfValue
My father was very intense, passionate and over-the-top. He was my hero and my tyrant.
FatherHeroPassionateIntenseHe
But, based on my friendship with Evie as young mothers, I started going on freedom rides in 1966.
FriendshipFreedomYoungGoingBased
Bisexuality means I am free and I am as likely to want to love a woman as I am likely to want to love a man, and what about that? Isn't that what freedom implies?
LoveFreedomWomanManI AmFree
Poetry is a political act because it involves telling the truth.
TruthPoetryPoliticalActBecause
The courts cannot garnish a father's salary, nor freeze his account, nor seize his property on behalf of his children, in our society. Apparently this is because a kid is not a car or a couch or a boat.
FatherCarChildrenSocietyBoat
There are two ways to worry words. One is hoping for the greatest possible beauty in what is created. The other is to tell the truth.
BeautyTruthWordsWorryPossible
The music of language became extremely important to me, and obvious to me. By the time I was seven I was writing myself. I was a poet.
MusicTimeMyselfMeWritingPoet
The first function of poetry is to tell the truth, to learn how to do that, to find out what you really feel and what you really think.
TruthPoetryThinkFeelLearnYou
That attitude that fighting is probably not fair, but you have to defend yourself anyway and damage the enemy, has been profoundly consequential as far as my political activism goes.
AttitudeYourselfFightingPolitical
Copyright © 2024 QuotesDict June Jordan quotes