{"id":762,"date":"2010-01-18T21:49:46","date_gmt":"2010-01-19T02:49:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lanternreview.com\/blog\/?p=762"},"modified":"2010-01-18T22:13:11","modified_gmt":"2010-01-19T03:13:11","slug":"editors-picks-a-voice-crying-stop-june-jordans-in-memoriam-martin-luther-king-jr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lanternreview.com\/blog\/2010\/01\/18\/editors-picks-a-voice-crying-stop-june-jordans-in-memoriam-martin-luther-king-jr\/","title":{"rendered":"Editor’s Picks: A Voice Crying “STOP” (June Jordan’s “In Memoriam: Martin Luther King, Jr.”)"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
June Jordan (Left) and Martin Luther King, Jr. (Right)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, I thought I would briefly discuss June Jordan<\/a>‘s unusual tribute poem, “In Memoriam: Martin Luther King, Jr.<\/a>”<\/p>\n

“In Memoriam . . .” is not a typical memorial poem.\u00a0 It begins with a rush of chaotic terror:<\/p>\n

“honey people murder mercy U.S.A.
\nthe milkland turn to monsters teach
\nto kill to violate pull down destroy
\nthe weakly freedom growing fruit
\nfrom being born<\/p>\n

America”<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Jordan’s syntax is like machine gun fire.\u00a0 Sharp “d” and “t” sounds perforate a matrix of associative fragments that superimpose images of fertility (“honey,” “milkland,” “growing fruit”) with images of destruction (“murder . . . \/ to kill to violate pull down destroy \/ the weekly freedom”).\u00a0 The tumbling momentum of her words propels us violently into the word “America,” which\u2014rather than acting as a barrier against the tide of violence\u2014becomes a springboard that births not liberty, but further atrocities.\u00a0 Despite the line breaks that set it off, “America” serves sonically and thematically as sprung breath \u2014 a launching pad, rather than an arrival.\u00a0 In stanza two, we are met with with an even longer list of brutalities:<\/div>\n
\n
“tomorrow yesterday rip rape<\/p>\n
exacerbate despoil disfigure<\/div>\n
crazy running threat the<\/div>\n
deadly thrall<\/div>\n
appall belief dispel<\/div>\n
the wildlife burn the breast<\/div>\n
the onward tongue<\/div>\n
the outward hand<\/div>\n
deform the normal rainy<\/div>\n
riot sunshine shelter wreck<\/div>\n
of darkness derogate<\/div>\n
delimit blank<\/div>\n
explode deprive<\/div>\n
assassinate and batten up<\/div>\n
like bullets fatten up<\/div>\n
the raving greed . . .”<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Rape, assassination, and fire “fatten up \/ the raving greed.”\u00a0 Participating in acts of violence becomes a kind of gluttonous exercise, in which the consumption of brutality turns into a “raving greed” for more.\u00a0 It is not until we reach the all-caps “STOP” at the end of Section I that the motion of the poem is disrupted.<\/div>\n
The violence does abate momentarily at the beginning of part II, lapsing into a quieter contemplative image of sleep and shells, and the speaker’s voice begins to emerge more cleanly in longer, more lyrical and more conventionally “grammatical” stretches of syntax.\u00a0\u00a0 But we are simultaneously made aware that the privileges of this sleep are reserved for an unnamed “they” who claim their “regulated place” by means of “some universal \/ stage direction.”\u00a0 By contrast, the “we” of the poem is relegated to the mercy of the unstable world of Section I, and even its briefly shared “afternoon of mourning” is “no next predictable.”<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
The poem ends with a motion back towards the same place it began: a fragmented whirlwind of\u00a0 violence invades the speaker’s voice and obliterates it almost entirely:<\/div>\n
\n
“wild reversal hearse rehearsal<\/div>\n
\n
bleach the blacklong lunging<\/div>\n
ritual of fright insanity and more<\/div>\n
deplorable abortion<\/div>\n
more and<\/div>\n
more”<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The clipped anaphora of “more and \/ more” deposits us at an ominous juncture.\u00a0 Jordan does not say what “more” modifies, but we can guess.\u00a0 We sense that what is to come will only be an escalation of the violence previously depicted.\u00a0 We can read “more and \/ more” in a couple of ways:\u00a0 from one angle, it could be an indication that what follows the poem is so grotesque as to be unspeakable (or that the speaker herself has been silenced and forbidden to tell any more); on the other hand, if we are to think of “more and \/ more” as a dangling modifier rather than as one that has been clipped from the idea it is modifying, “more and \/ more” could imply a sense of exhaustion on the part of the speaker (i.e. that the perpetration of injustice has become so normalized as to make it mundane, and no longer worthy of further description).\u00a0 And yet, one must not forget that as the poet, Jordon has a level of agency not available to the voices contained within her poem.\u00a0 June Jordan<\/em> is the outside agent who cuts off the poem at “more and \/ more” before its universe can spiral even further out of control.\u00a0 In a way, then, the practice of craft allows Jordan to participate in a kind of textual or virtual activism.\u00a0 Ending the poem here not only allows for a dramatic pause that gives the troubling picture she’s painted room to resonate, but also posits her (the poet) as a barrier against the onslaught of vitriol in much the same way that “STOP” operates at the end of Section I.<\/p>\n

How, then, does Jordan’s piece serve as a “Memoriam”?\u00a0 It is not, in the traditional sense, an elegy; nor does it provide a retrospective summary of King’s accomplishments.\u00a0 Certainly, none of it is addressed directly to King or to his memory. But in a way, Jordan does<\/em> pay tribute to King’s legacy by reenacting, in poetic form, his ultimate act: stopping a bullet with his chest.\u00a0 In losing his life, King gave credence to the ideas he’d espoused.\u00a0 His death became a rallying cry for many, just as in life, he’d called others to action by crying out “STOP” in the face of the injustice he saw swirling around him.\u00a0 The poem’s two movements\u2014a stop, and stop again\u2014seem to envision a cycle, in which the first act of crying out “STOP” makes possible the subsequent termination of the “insanity” and “deplorable abortion” in Section II before “more \/ and more” can come to fruition.\u00a0 Jordan’s speaker has no illusions about the state of the world in which we live \u2014 King’s work did not cause a complete end to racial inequality in America.\u00a0 We still live in a nation riddled with injustice.\u00a0 But the impact of King’s legacy is such that he did, for at least an instant, cause a hiccup, a disruption in the field that made people pause (even if uncomfortably so), and take note.\u00a0 And his cry of “STOP,” which resonated in the nation’s consciousness long after his body had succumbed to a bullet, has helped to enable later voices to cry “STOP” as the struggle for social justice continues.<\/p>\n

To read Jordan’s “In Memoriam: Martin Luther King, Jr.” in its entirety, click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

June Jordan is not the only poet whose reflections we’d recommend to you on this day of celebrating Dr. King’s legacy. A wealth of other poems that have been written about, or which were important to, the Civil Rights Movement have also been collected on the web.\u00a0 Here are a just a few sites that we thought were particularly interesting:<\/p>\n