Our runaways may well be the backbone courageous among our kids: the ones who will risk hunger and forced prostitution and jail and death, in order t… - June Jordan

If we collaborate with the powerful then our language will lose its currency as a means to tell the truth in order to change the truth.

I am working for the courage to admit the truth that Bertolt Brecht has written; he says, "It takes courage to say that the good were defeated not because they were good, but because they were weak." I cherish the mercy and the grace of women’s work. But I know there is new work that we must undertake as well: that new work will make defeat detestable to us. That new women’s work will mean we will not die trying to stand up: we will live that way: standing up. I came too late to help my mother to her feet. By way of everlasting thanks to all of the women who have helped me to stay alive I am working never to be late again.

"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." June Jordan