Soldier: A Poet's Childhood

June Jordan was born in Harlem in 1936 and was the author of ten books of poetry, seven collections of essays, two plays, a libretto, a novel, a memoir, five children's books, and Poetry for the People: A Revolutionary Blueprint. As a professor at UC Berkeley, Jordan established Poetry for the People, a program to train student teachers to teach the power of poetry from a multicultural worldview. She was a regular columnist for The Progressive and her articles appeared in The Village Voice, The New York Times, Ms., Essence, and The Nation. She died of breast cancer in 2002.

Alexis Pauline Gumbs (editor) is the author of several books, including Survival Is a Promise: The Eternal Life of Audre Lorde winner of the Judy Grahn Prize and the Zora in non-fiction, and Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals, for which she won a Whiting Award. She has also been honored with the Windham Campbell Prize for her poetry, and two National Humanities Center Fellowships for her intellectual impact. She lives in Durham, North Carolina.