This Unruly Witness

A collection of bold, tender, and illuminating writings on June Jordan's multidimensional legacy and the "sacred continuance" of her work as poet, healer, and activist.

This Unruly Witness, created to celebrate the life and legacy of the poet activist June Jordan was curated for people who see love as a life force, who seek a community that can sustain us, who know that "we are the ones we have been waiting for." With essays and poetry written by people carrying the batons Jordan passed, this collection illuminates why we need Jordan more than ever.

This is the first collection written by artists, intellectuals, and activists whose work has been deeply shaped by June Jordan's extraordinary legacy. Featuring essays, poems, letters, and interviews from internationally acclaimed poets, and thinkers including Angela Davis, Pratibha Parmar, Margo Okazawa-Rey, Naomi Shihab Nye, Afaa M. Weaver, E. Ethelbert Miller, and former students of June Jordan's.

June Jordan (1936-2002) was a writer, activist, and educator whose work blended the categories of poetry, essays, and fiction. She is the author of Who Look at Me, Naming Our Destiny, His Own Where, and more.

Becky Thompson is a scholar, poet, and activist. Her poetry collections include To Speak in Salt (forthcoming) and Zero Is the Whole I Fall into at Night. Her two edited volumes of poetry include Making Mirrors: Righting/Writing by and for Refugees (with Palestinian poet, Jehan Bseiso) and Fingernails across the Chalkboard: Poetry and Prose on HIV/AIDS from the Black Diaspora (co-edited with Randall Horton).

Lauren Muller taught with June Jordan at the University of California at Berkeley for many years. She was the editor of June Jordan's Poetry for the People.

Dominique C. Hill is a qualitative researcher and body archivist of intergenerational survival through Black girlhood and Black queer resistance. A Black girlhood scholar and homegirl of Saving Our Lives Hear Our Truths (SOLHOT), Hill takes seriously cultivating spaces for Black girl freedom. Hill extends the possibilities of Black girlhood and vulnerability as an assistant professor of Women's Studies at Colgate University.

Durell M. Callier is an artist-scholar who employs Black feminist and queer methodologies to explore the interconnectivity of race, gender, sexuality, and culture. His research documents, analyzes, and interrogates the lived experiences of Black youth and their communities. Callier's scholarship illuminates how Black art and creative practices subvert, respond to, and reimagine Black life amidst anti-Black and anti-queer violence.

• Publisher: Haymarket (November 11, 2025)
• Item Weight: 7.6 ounces
• Paperback: 304 pages
• ISBN-13: 9798888904572
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.6 x 8.44 inches
• BISAC Categories: Literary Fiction, Education, Politics, Society & Current Affairs