We are excited to announce that the Departments of African American Studies and Gender and Women's Studies at UC Berkeley, in collaboration with Adrienne Torf, Raymond O. Caldwell, and the Fountain Theater of Los Angeles, are hosting a performance of the award-winning Poetry for the People: The June Jordan Experience in Berkeley in February 2026. This theater piece is an intimate portrait of the late poet, UC Berkeley professor, and activist June Jordan, told largely through her own poetry, essays, memoir, and interviews. In conjunction with the production, our departments will host a week of campus programming, and in honor of these upcoming events, we share a student research project from African American Studies major and Reading Room Attendant Joy Wilson about the legacy of June Jordan's Poetry of the People at UC Berkeley and how love was an integral principle of her work.
The Department of African American's digital collection housed with California Revealed features extensive archival materials. This collection features material from the development and continuation of the department ranging from film, digital, and more mediums. The digital preservation of the history of African American Studies includes film from June Jordan's Poetry for the People (P4P) classes and lectures. Poetry for the People and the positive and loving impact June Jordan had for many students, faculty, and those who interacted with her is forever lasting. June Jordan was and continues to be a person whose legacy inspires and uplifts the African American Studies Department and the Berkeley community as a whole. She embodies what it means to be both an activist and poet.
Prior to coming to UC Berkeley, June Jordan was faculty at the State University of New York (SUNY). She came to UC Berkeley as a tenure professor in 1989, where she taught until she passed away in 2002. Her initial appointment at UC Berkeley was in English and Women's Studies, and then she joined the African American Studies Department soon after. Early in her tenure at UC Berkeley, June Jordan founded Poetry for the People, a continuation of her teaching poetry and poetic traditions at other institutions. June decided to create Poetry for the People because she was distressed that classes were segregated between African American Studies, composed primarily of Black students, and Women's Studies, being predominantly white students. June believed that poetry gave voice to all people and wanted to bring students from all backgrounds and races together in Poetry for the People. She helped foster an environment on campus that bridged connections between different people, who may have never otherwise interacted with one another if they did not take the course. Her vision and execution of Poetry for the People allowed everyone to focus on and understand the power of language. She knew, and it proved true, that whoever took this course could take what they learned through empowerment and philosophy, to contribute to a revolutionary change in any field they pursued.
Her first class included training in the methods of Poetry for the People, learning the specific guidelines of a poem, and learning how to read and write poetry. In her book, June Jordan's Poetry for the People: A Revolutionary Blueprint, June offers a guide for identifying if a piece of writing was a poem. She detailed that poetry is, "a medium for telling the truth,” and one of her words of wisdom and advice that she stood for was that poems had to have “maximum impact with a minimal number of words.” She believed and shared that poems, as a means of language, should be communicated, never hiding what you want to say. Poems to her were a way for people to use language to speak about urgent matters in a way that anyone would pay attention to. Always emphasizing that poetry should be engaged with and never be abstract, always having a direct impact on the reader and our world.
Poetry for the People was a course taught and facilitated by June Jordan. However, June Jordan saw the importance of student collaboration in every Poetry for the People course she oversaw, teaching and empowering undergraduates to become Student-Teacher-Poets, allowing these students to facilitate lectures and dialogues on the topic of poetry they discussed in class. These courses were classes with syllabuses and grades, but it ultimately felt like a beloved community by many who took part in Poetry for the People. Grounded in the establishment of Poetry for the People was that June Jordan believed that anyone who wanted to learn poetry and be a poet could do so. She also wanted every student who came through Poetry for the People to become a published poet, so each semester students in the course worked on, compiled, and published an anthology of poems.
In the course, June and Student-Teacher-Poets followed the philosophy that every poem that someone wrote was a part of a tradition of "write or be written." Everything someone writes sets the tone for what is reality. Through this philosophy she reminded people that there was never a line between the personal and political. Whatever was political was personal and anything personal was political. Thus, she believed and instilled that the act of writing a poem is a political act. Many of the philosophies she taught in the course remained with her students, because even though one may not pursue writing poems in life, people could take the ideas they learned in class and continue that tradition in anything they do.
The impact of June Jordan and her work through Poetry for the People was extensive. In the course, even after June Jordan’s passing, people expressed that they were connected to June Jordan even though they had never met her. She was truly an infectious and hilarious, joy-filled human being who cared deeply for the people around her. Always spreading love.
Love was also a topic, act, and state of being that June emphasized in her class and everyday life. Love is consciously and unconsciously engraved in poetry. In moments of chaos and disaster, one might think we do not have time for love poems since we need to take action or sit in what is going on. But June Jordan would attest and say that in these times of need are moments when love poems are needed.
A love poem does not have to be a poem that you write about someone you are in love with, but it could be about someone you are in love with. Love poems can be broader and more applicable to any moment or feeling in time, and it could also be about people one is not romantically in love with but care about, or people in other parts of the world who you feel connected to for political reasons. For June Jordan, love was one of the most important things in our world, which inspired a lot of people to take risks and make connections with people. June Jordan wrote a lot of love poems to people she was romantically in love with.
On the topic of love, one archival record from the Poetry for the People (P4P) course is a video recording of a lecture from P4P, with the course topic, African American Love Self. This lecture occurred on the eve of Valentines Day in 2002. The lecture elaborates on the topic of Self Affirmation Love Poetry. The lecture was separated into three different parts, all vital to understanding Self Affirmation Poetry; the meaning and impact of love poetry; expanding on what Self Affirmation Love Poetry looks like and why it is important; and what Black English is, highlighting its rules and the reality that it is not just a slang, but a language vital to Black people to express themselves.
Some highlights discussed in the lecture are understanding that love poetry can help you and anyone understand what love is and how to express it. The video exemplifies how self affirmation poetry uplifts Black people to state, claim, and present themselves not as 3/5th's of a human as history dictates Black people, but as a whole person, a human worthy of life. Also this lecture highlights the importance of Black English, and how it is a language that connects the literacy and freedom of the African American and Black communities.
If you have a moment and want to explore this specific P4P video recording (Link) or other materials of the African American Studies, please go to the California Revealed website to see what more you can uncover about the continuing history of Black people and community from the Department of African American Studies at UC Berkeley! (Link)
If you want to learn more about June Jordan or Poetry for the People please visit the Ethnic Studies Library at UC Berkeley, which has multiple collections and archives. From collections of poems made and published by students in the course, course syllabuses over the years, and many more wonderful finds. So we encourage you to check out in person or the Ethnic Studies Library website (Link).
I would love to extend a sincere thank you to everyone who supported the research for this article, including: Adrienne Torf, June Jordan's life partner and artistic collaborator; Kelly Elaine who was in the first cohort of Student-Poet-Teachers; and Junichi Semitsu, who was a Student-Poet-Teacher and helped take over the teaching and facilitation of the Poetry for the People Course when June Jordan fell ill. You all graciously provided valuable knowledge, personal anecdotes, and voiced your love and appreciation for June Jordan and Poetry for the People!
Remember, make room to receive and give love in all of its abundance! Also please stay tuned for more information about all events hosted by our department leading up to the theater piece of the award-winning Poetry for the People: The June Jordan Experience to Berkeley this coming February 2026.