SOURCE: "Provoking Engagement," in The Nation, Vol. 250, No. 4, January 29, 1990, pp. 135-39.

In the following review, Hacker surveys the themes and techniques in Jordan's Selected Poems and evaluates some of the poet's positions and propositions.

June Jordan's new book [Naming Our Destiny: New and Selected Poems] is an anthology of causes won, lost, moot, private and public, forgotten and remembered. Anyone who doubts the relevance and timeliness of poetry ought to read Jordan, who has been among the front-line correspondents for almost thirty years and is still a young and vital writer. So should anyone who wants his or her curiosity and indignation aroused, or wants to read a voice that makes itself heard on the page.

There are as many kinds of poetry as there are novels and plays. But some critics, who would not fault a novel of social protest for failing to be a novel of...