June Jordan's Poetry for the People

Book excerpt: This lively "blueprint" (guidebook) represents collaborative efforts of the Poetry for the People, 60 or more multicultural students under the leadership of June Jordan at the University of California, Berkeley. Describing how-tos of grassroots poetry programs and staunchly pledged to current politically correct tenets of diversity, in addition to printing student poems, this anthology reviews how to take readings and workshops into the community and cultivate "empowerment by affirming that everybody has something to offer." Chapters discuss these "cultural literacies": African American; Asian American; Caribbean; Chicana/o, Latina/o American; children's; deaf; gay and lesbian; Irish and Irish American; Native American; and women's. This celebration of "explorative" poetry as a communal, oral art form is an easy-to-use, timely reference for community college, public libraries, and writers' centers. Frank Allen, Northampton Community Coll., Tannersville, Pa. Copyright 1995 Cahners Business Information.