THIS UNRULY WITNESS
June Jordan’s Legacy
Edited by Durell M. Callier, Dominique C. Hill, Lauren Muller, and Becky Thompson.
Foreword by Alexis Pauline Gumbs
Afterword by Imani Perry
Haymarket Books (28 September, 2025
Trade paper • ISBN-13: 9798888904572 • US $17.95 • 5.5 in x 8.5 in • 140 pgs.
ABOUT THE BOOK:
A collection of bold and tender writing on June Jordan’s multidimensional legacy as a poet, healer, and activist.
This Unruly Witness was curated for people who see love as a life force, who seek a community that can sustain us, who know that “we are the ones we have been waiting for.” Celebrating the life and legacy of the poet activist June Jordan, this collection illuminates why we need Jordan more than ever.
Featuring an introduction by alexis pauline gumbs, an afterword from Imani Perry, essays, poems, letters, and interviews from internationally acclaimed poets and thinkers such as Angela Davis, Pratibha Parmar, Margo Okazawa-Rey, Naomi Shihab Nye, Afaa M. Weaver, E. Ethelbert Miller, and Jordan’s former students.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS:
Becky Thompson is a scholar, poet, activist, and author of poetry collections To Speak in Salt and Zero Is the Whole I Fall into at Night.
Lauren Muller (1959–2023) was chosen by June Jordan to edit the collectively-inspired June Jordan’s Poetry for the People. Muller, the Chair of Interdisciplinary Studies at City College of San Francisco, also coedited Reckonings: Contemporary Short Fiction by Native American Women.
Dominique C. Hill, an assistant professor of women’s studies at Colgate University, is a qualitative researcher and body archivist studying Black girlhood and Black queer resistance.
Durell M. Callier is an artist-scholar who documents the lived experiences of Black youth and their communities, examining how Black art and creative practices subvert and reimagine Black life in the face of violence.
RIGHTS INFORMATION:
Please contact subagents for the following languages and territories:
| Language/Territory | Subagent |
|---|---|
| China, Taiwan, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Vietnam | Big Apple Agency |
| Dutch | Sebes & Bisseling Literary Agency |
| English outside North America | David Grossman Literary Agency |
| French | Deborah Druba Agency |
| German | Paul & Peter Fritz AG Literatur Agentur |
| Greek | Read n' Right Agency |
| Hebrew | The Deborah Harris Agency |
| Italian | Berla & Griffini Rights Agency |
| Japanese | The English Agency (Japan) Ltd |
| Korean | BC Agency, or Korea Copyright Center |
| Portuguese | RIFF Agency |
| Russia/Baltics/Eastern Europe | Prava I Prevodi |
| Scandinavia | Sebes & Bisseling Literary Agency |
| Spanish in Latin America | MB Agencia Literaria |
| Spanish in Spain | MB Agencia Literaria |
| Turkish | Anatolialit Agency |
For all other languages/territories, please contact Roam Agency.