POETRY AS ACTIVISM,
MEMORY, AND INVITATION

A moving, participatory tribute to June
Jordan that insists poetry still matters

June Jordan was a seminal feminist poet and essayist who—beyond gender—tackled issues of race, sexual identity, and political activism. She believed that the truest means of understanding the challenges these forces posed to American society, and of devising solutions to them, could be found in poetry.

Naseem Etemad

Born in Harlem in 1936, Jordan credited her father with inspiring her love of literature, and by the age of seven she was composing poetry of her own. She went on to become an educator, first at the City College of New York and later as a full professor at the University of California, Berkeley. In 1991, while at Berkeley, she founded her influential Poetry for the People program, using poetry as a tool for political awareness and empowerment.

Mackenzie Mondag, Kita Grayson (obscured),
Savannah Schoenecker, Janet Song, Naseem Etemad

Poetry for the People: The June Jordan Experience, now on stage at The Fountain Theatre, is a theatrical portmanteau of these many facets of Jordan’s life and passions. Playwrights Raymond O. Caldwell and Adrienne Torf draw from Jordan’s autobiographical Soldier: A Poet’s Childhood (2000), as well as excerpts from her 27 other published works of poetry and essays, to create a dramatic tapestry that spans Jordan’s early marriage to a white Barnard College student—an experience that thrust her into the realities of American racism—her involvement in the Civil Rights Movement, her architectural collaboration with Buckminster Fuller, and her public identification as bisexual in the late 1960s.

Naseem Etemad and Mackenzie Mondag

Among the more topical subjects addressed is Jordan’s outspoken support for the Palestinian people, drawn from her essays Life After Lebanon (1984) and Waking Up in the Middle of Some American Dreams (1986). Helping to weave these strands together are evocative photo collages and interview fragments from Jordan’s life, designed by media artist Deja Collins.

Kita Grayson

With music composed by Torf and additional compositions by sound designer Andrea Allmond, all under the assured direction of Raymond O. Caldwell, the ensemble—America Covarrubias, Naseem Etemad, Kita Grayson, Mackenzie Mondag, Savannah Schoenecker, and Janet Song—offers a vibrant, joyful celebration of Jordan’s life and achievements.

Mackenzie Mondag and Savannah Schoenecker

Jordan’s core passion, poetry, is never sidelined. In a quietly radical gesture, pads and pens are distributed to the audience, who at select moments are invited to write their own verses in response to the themes being explored—and to share them aloud. This is not a novelty but a living extension of Jordan’s Poetry for the People philosophy: poetry as a communal act, a means of witness, and a tool for resistance. Some of the offerings are tentative, others raw or unexpectedly eloquent, but all feel aligned with Jordan’s belief that poetry belongs to everyone.

America Covarrubias, Savannah Schoenecker,
Mackenzie Mondag, Naseem Etemad, Kita Grayson

June Jordan died of breast cancer in 2002. She was 65. What Poetry for the People: The June Jordan Experience makes clear is that her work—and her insistence that language can be both deeply personal and urgently political—remains alive. By the final moments, the production has done more than recount a remarkable life; it has invited the audience to take part in Jordan’s ongoing project, reminding us that poetry is not merely to be admired, but to be used.

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photos by Areon Mobasher

Poetry for the People: The June Jordan Experience
The Fountain Theatre
5060 Fountain Ave. at Normandie (on-site parking $5)
90 minutes, no intermission
Fri, Sat & Mon at 8; Sun at 2 (dark Feb. 23)
ends on March 29, 2026
for tickets (Name Your Price), call 323.663.1525 or visit Fountain Theatre

for more shows, visit Theatre in LA

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Adrienne Torf and June Jordan (photo by Sardi Klein)