June Jordan, “Financial Planning” & “Song of the Law Abiding Citizen”
Al Filreis convened Bob Holman, Christy Davids, and Herman Beavers to talk about two poems by the late June Jordan. The two poems are “Financial Planning” and “Song of the Law Abiding Citizen,” and the easiest place to find the texts of these poems is Directed by Desire: The Collected Poems of June Jordan (Copper Canyon Press, 2007), with its foreword by Adrienne Rich. Our recordings of Jordan’s performance of these poems comes from the “Poetry Spots” series which was created by our Bob Holman and aired on WNYC-TV as “non-commercial commercials” from 1987 through 1993. The original air date of the two June Jordan segments was April 26, 1989. For PoemTalk we play audio-only versions (this and this) but we want to urge our listeners to watch copies of the old videos available through YouTube. HERE is June performing “Financial Planning.” And HERE is the spot in which she presents her “Song of the Law Abiding Citizen.”
Bob has been interviewed about the “Poetry Spots” project. The tenor of the venture is captured by one of his comments: “I love poetry, I love its variety. I love people who say that’s not a poem, because when that’s not a poem, you get to talk about what a poem is. And who dares define that?” HERE is a link to the entire interview. And more about “Poetry Spots” can be found HERE.
[] Text of “Financial Planning”: LINK
[] Text of “Song of the Law Abiding Citizen”: LINK
This episode of PoemTalk was directed and engineered by Zach Carduner, Magda Andrews-Hoke, and Makena Deveroux. It was edited as always by Zach.