Rebecca Hatkoff on Poetry for the People

To: whseminar@dept.english.upenn.edu
Subject: Poetry For The People
Message-ID: <986626019.3aceb7e36e8e8@webmail.sas.upenn.edu>
Date: Sat, 07 Apr 2001 02:46:59 -0400 (EDT)


I have the responsibility of writing the special report on poetry for 
the people. My initial intention was to have it for you earlier this 
week so you could have a bit of extra information about it before you 
read the book. I had emailed a couple of people directly affiliated 
with the program and June Jordan with some questions in the hopes that 
they might be able to offer a bit more insight into the program than 
the book provides. Unfortunately they all decided that it was 
unnecessary to provide me with timely or detailed responses. I was 
directed to a website that provided some, though not much, information 
that isn’t in the book we have to read- so I will tell you all about 
that. I also thought, since I don’t have too much else, you might be 
interested in some details about programs that have stemmed off 
from “Poetry in The People.” I apologize for the tardiness, I really 
was hoping to bring some enlightening information to the table…perhaps 
you could be a bit creative and just imagine that I have.






       “It’s called Poetry for the People because it is not poetry for 
the poets, or poetry for the published, it’s poetry for the 
people”(June Jordan). With that said, Poetry for the People is a 
program aimed toward achieving political and artistic empowerment for 
students. Implicit in this mission is the wish to eliminate silence and 
invisibility. In order to achieve this goal, there are three rules that 
must be strictly obeyed:

1."The People" shall not be defined as a group excluding or derogating 
anyone on the basis of race, religion, ethnicity, language, sexual 
orientation, class or age. 

(“If you delete taglines like ‘multicultural’ or ‘gender’ or ‘sexual 
preference’ from your brain and, instead, look to see who are the 
students you hope to interest, inform, include, and enlighten…”(June 
Jordan))

2. "The People" shall consciously undertake to respect and to encourage 
each other to feel safe enough to attempt the building of a community 
of trust in which all may try to be truthful and deeply serious in the 
messages they craft for the world to contemplate. 

(“I remember my happy shock when I saw a young White lesbian student 
and a yond Black student, a nationalist young man, laughing and dancing 
around with a vacuum cleaner in the cleanup aftermath of a reception 
held in the English department’s lounge.” (Jordan))

3. Poetry for the People rests upon a belief that the art of telling 
the truth is a necessary and a healthy way to create powerful, and 
positive, connections among people who, otherwise remain (unknown or 
unaware) strangers. The goal is not to kill connections but, rather to 
create and to deepen them among truly different men and women. 

(“Why should power and language coalesce in poetry? Because poetry is 
the medium for telling the truth…anyone who becomes a practicing poet 
has an excellent chance of becoming somebody real, somebody known, 
somebody self defined…hungering for kindred real voices 
utterly/articulately different from his or her own.” (Jordan))

       One of the many remarkable things about Poetry for the People is 
that it is an academically accredited program at the University of 
California Berkeley. The program originated within this public 
institution thanks to the efforts of June Jordan. June Jordan 
effusively remarks in her introduction to Poetry for the People: A 
revolutionary Blueprint:

~~Evidently, at last, I had become a part of an academic community 
where you could love school because school did not have to be something 
apart from, or in denial of, your own life and the multifarious new 
lives of your heterogeneous students! School could become, in fact, a 
place where students learned about the world and then resolved, 
collectively and creatively, to change it!~~

True to what Jordan says, Poetry for the People has been making some 
serious dents on society. But, not only as an idea, but also as a 
class, Poetry of the People has a couple simple rules to follow. First, 
it is essential that the course is never a required course (easy 
enough). And second, anyone electing to partake in the program/class 
must sustain “a verifiable, good faith commitment to promoting the 
likelihood of a successful poem.” These rules for the class, along with 
the above rules for the program, amplify the aim of Poetry for the 
People, it is all about the people (duh) and it does a great job of not 
contradicting this aim in any way.

       The workshops affiliated with the class, which are run in the 
city of Berkeley, are led by 20 graduates of the school who have all 
taken Jordan’s three-part course “Poetry for the People”. This not only 
provides UC students with an opportunity to write and perform poetry, 
but also to go into the community and teach young students to do the 
same. The philosophy behind this effort is “each one teach one” and the 
idea that every individual has the ability to communicate at least one 
compelling truth to the world.

        June Jordan might have started the program Poetry for the 
People in conjunction with the Women’s Studies and African American 
Studies Program at Berkeley in 1990 but today Poetry for the People is 
more like a movement than a program. It has spread all across the 
country and has reached out (and touched) many underprivileged 
communities. Programs resembling, though not exactly alike have been 
founded in San Francisco, Chicago, and Philadelphia. Of particular 
interest to us is the Philadelphia branch; the following is their 
mission statement:

      ·	Combine poetry and spoken word in all of our public service     
activities

      ·	Host mobile open poetry readings where poets from all over the 
city can come and share their work in a warm atmosphere. The readings 
are always free, wheelchair accessible, and provide childcare and a 
meal to those who need it.

      ·	Put on spontaneous performances in public places such as the 
subway, Laundromat, or thrift store.

      ·	Sponsor free low-cost literacy and creative writing workshops 
for people of all ages in local community centers and shelters.

      ·	Publish a yearly anthology of work by community poets, young 
and old.
      
      ·	Provide training and support to poets who wish to become active 
in their communities.

       
        June Jordan has said that for some, Poetry for the People has 
become a way of life; indeed it has. It has infiltrated the lives of 
many students, college educated and under privileged. It has inspired 
many others to pursue similar programs that hope to teach people how to 
express themselves in creative outlets. Poetry for the People has 
provided many people with a voice the community is listening to. It is 
a wonderful program, and I don’t know about you guys, but I am really 
excited to meet the woman who dreamed it all up.