Soldier: A Poet's Childhood

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Written with exceptional beauty throughout, Soldier stands and delivers an eloquent, heart-breaking, hilarious and hopeful, witness to the beginnings of a truly extraordinary, American life.

Reviews

"A memoir, a manual for survival, a critical deconstruction of the childhood of poetry, June Jordan's Soldier is the story of a child whose father dreamed of her becoming a soldier. She grew into a warrior instead." --Walter Mosley
"I didn't want to leave her--to let this little soldier go. So delightful, so proud, so loaded with expectations. There is so much always bubbling beneath the surface, and you see it all, just bubbling into these vivid recollections of a singular childhood: of yearning for and earning parental love; of learning fearlessness and beauty and poetry. Soldier is such an intensely perceptive memoir. I am left breathless, waiting for more." --Toni Morrison
"With searing honesty and the ferocity of a child, June Jordan has once again found a way to make the impossible brutality of living a song." --Ntozake Shange

Author Bio

June Jordan was Professor of African American Studies at U.C. Berkeley and was born in New York City in 1936. Her books of poetry include Haruko / Love Poems and Naming Our Destiny: New and Selected Poems. She was also the author of five children's books, a novel, three plays, and five volumes of political essays, the most recent of which was Affirmative Acts. For more than ten years, she wrote a regular political column for The Progressive magazine. Her honours included a National Book Award nomination, a Rockefeller Foundation grant, and a National Association of Black Journalists Award. June Jordan died in Berkeley, California on June 14, 2002.