Soldier: A Poet's Childhood - Softcover

Jordan, June

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0465036821 ISBN 13: 9780465036820

Publisher: Civitas Books, 2001

Synopsis

Written with exceptional beauty throughout, Soldier stands and delivers an eloquent, heart-breaking, hilarious and hopeful, witness to the beginnings of a truly extraordinary, American life.

About this title

About the Author

June Jordan was Professor of African American Studies at U.C. Berkeley and was born in New York City in 1936. Her books of poetry include Haruko / Love Poems and Naming Our Destiny: New and Selected Poems. She was also the author of five children's books, a novel, three plays, and five volumes of political essays, the most recent of which was Affirmative Acts. For more than ten years, she wrote a regular political column for The Progressive magazine. Her honours included a National Book Award nomination, a Rockefeller Foundation grant, and a National Association of Black Journalists Award. June Jordan died in Berkeley, California on June 14, 2002.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Soldier

A Poet's ChildhoodBy June Jordan

Basic Civitas Books

Copyright © 2001 June Jordan
All right reserved.
ISBN: 9780465036820

Chapter One

I was born on the hottest day, in Harlem. A beastly heatset records while my mother labored more than twenty-fivehours, alone, inside a shuttered hospital room.

    No one gave her anesthesia or any other comfort.

    The staff kept my father waiting beyond the closed door.And, stunned by her incessant weeping, her repetitive, weepingpetitions to the Lord for some relief, he could scarcely decidewhether to sit, to stand, or to smash up a chair, a pane ofglass, a coffee cup.

    My mother continued to moan. And she begged God toforgive her for these outbursts of ingratitude.

    She was being blessed with a child. Months before, she hadbeen visited in her sleep by angels who had told her that thisfirstborn would prove to be a great help to her people: Coloredpeople. She was being blessed.

    But she felt sundered by an agony that would subside onlyto return with a piercing intensity that lasted quite beyondher sensible endurance.

    Her own sweat and bits of shit and blood drenched thesheets beneath her torment and she twisted and she toiledthrough arduous hours of her sacred tribulation, and shetried?she tried?to praise Jesus and His suffering as she sufferednow, the curse of every woman.

    This, then, was her cross to bear: This giving birth to me.

* * *

They were both West Indian immigrants. Both of them cameto America from barefoot, peasant levels of poverty. But therethe similarities disappeared.

    My father quit after the first few months of grade school inJamaica because, he said, the other children laughed at therags he wore.

    My mother completed the equivalent of high school and so,as my father reminded her, again and again, she knew how toread and write "long before" he got around to teaching himselfthose skills.

    But my mother grew up in the dirt-floor cabin of a mountainvillage without electricity or running water. She wouldoften whisper to me pictures of the frightening shadows of bananaleaves below the changing message of the moon.

    She came to this country because my grandmother, a domesticworker in New Jersey, finally sent for her.

    My father came because his older brother, down in Panama,tried to take his teeth out with an ordinary pair of pliers.

    Or: He came because he'd finished his stint as a British soldierwho served in a cavalry regiment of Her Majesty's somethingor other in World War I.

    It was hard to settle my father into a steady frame of reference.

    He was a "race man," an admirer of Marcus Garvey, an enthusiastfor theories about African origins of the humanspecies, a zealous volunteer boxing instructor at the HarlemYMCA, devotedly literate in the available Negro poetry andpolitical writings?and, also, he would angrily insist that hewas not "black," not a "Negro."

    Looking at him, you'd have to say that my father was extremelyhandsome, possibly white, and at least 50 percentChinese.

    Listening to him, you'd have to conclude that he was passionatelyconfused and volatile.

    Calling himself the Little Bull, my father was short, conspicuouslyfit, truculent, and generally (with women) flirtatious.

    Believing that "idleness is the devil's plan," he stayed busy;reading through the night, his index finger tracking each syllablethat he silently mouthed, or writing letters to governmentofficials, or designing the next household or backyardproject, or refining a schedule of forced enlightenment for me,his only child.

    He was forever loquacious, argumentative, and visionary inhis perspective.

    And he was addicted to beauty, which is probably why hemarried my mother.

    She had flawless brown skin and enormous dark browneyes. She was very beautiful. She was also very sad. But my fathermistook her sadness for dignity, and he treasured her reserve,her hesitant pacing, her mysterious poise. He also savoredthe teasing of her artificial quiet, the fullness of herbosom, and her quivering lower lip. She walked that proud Jamaicanwalk, allowing for no haste, no misstep, no embarrassmentof clumsy impulse.

    He was a man's man. She was a man's woman, thrilled to bechosen by an unemployed, ambitious West Indian who wouldmake her his wife: He would be the stubborn provider whowould take proper care of her in this strange, fast-talking city.

    And on the afternoon when he did at last get work, as anelevator operator, my father ran the whole length of Manhattan,uptown to their two cramped rooms, to shout, "A job! Ajob! I got a job!"

    He intended to keep every single promise he made toher?and to himself.

    All he wanted in exchange was her fidelity, her respect, alittle loosening up on the affectionate side of things, and ason.

* * *

I loved orange juice. It seemed to me that orange juice anddaylight fused in my mind as soon as I could focus. It wassuch a wonderful color! And you could see orange pulp particlesmoving inside that delicious liquid! A bottle or a glass oforange juice presented me with an aquarium that I could taste.And, oh! The pleasures of that color and that movement ofthat coloring on my tongue!

    I could look and look at orange juice. I wanted and I hopedfor and I never forgot about orange juice.

    Milk was good for you.

    I hated it.

    But orange juice and the transparencies of glass and suffusingmodulations of a day's light could and would excite meawake, my eyes wide open for more orange juice: More!

* * *

Half a year after I was born, it must have been Christmastime.The square rooms of our public-housing apartment feltcrowded to me as many more visitors than usual came andwent. A variety of unfamiliar voices boomed and lilted aroundthe tree and my wicker bassinet.

    My mother did not feel like starch or smell like food. Itried to reach for the tiny holiday rhinestones I saw sparklingaround her neck and swaying from her ears. But she'd shakeher head and tickle my stomach and singsong a nursery rhymeto distract me:

Hey diddle diddle
The cat and the fiddle
The cow jumped over the moon
The little dog laughed
To see such sport
And the dish ran away with the spoon

    My mother had the habit of connecting a particular part ofmy body to every noun. For example, she'd say "Hey diddlediddle" and, at the second "diddle," she'd choose a spot?perhapsmy cheek or the tip of my nose?and she'd press or pinchor kiss that chosen counterpart: "The cat" (scratching myelbow) "and the fiddle" (squeezing my thumb).

    It's fair to say I could not help but fall in love with words.

    In this regard, my favorite rhyme was

This little pig went to market
This little pig stayed home
This little pig had roast beef
This little pig had none
This little pig cried wee, wee, wee!
All the way home

    Quickly enough I learned I had five toes on each of my feet:My mother would wiggle them one at a time to identify eachlittle pig, and, then, when she got to "all the way home,"she'd bury her nose in my belly and giggle a soft sound that Iliked to listen to.

    Pretty soon my body had absorbed the language of all ofthe Mother Goose nursery rhymes, and my mother's dramatizationof the rhythms of these words filled me with regularfeelings of agreeable intoxication.

    Even this:

There was an old woman who lived in a shoe She had so many children she didn't know what to do She gave them some broth without any bread And whipped them all soundly and sent them to bed

    Even that seemed wildly hilarious to me; I could hardlywait to hear it, again and again.

    But except for Christmas, things stayed pretty quiet. Myfather talked to my mother. My mother talked to me.

* * *

And there was somebody else: Another child, my cousin, Valerie.She lived with us.

    Until I got to be seven, my parents raised her as their owndaughter.

    She was four years older than I.

    She looked like my mother: She resembled her so strikinglythat passersby would often comment upon my mother's prettylittle girl, and then, turning their attention to me, they'd ask,"Whose baby is this?"

* * *

Valerie was a musical prodigy and, while we were still living inHarlem, she actually held her debut piano recital at LittleCarnegie Hall. With an astonishing memory, an uncanny mimic'sgift, and huge almond eyes smothered by curly black eyelashes,she was, as everyone said, a remarkable, very pretty girl.

    And shortly after I was born, Valerie was found trying tosnuff me out. She was holding my baby pillow over my faceand counting.

    I don't think she was happy.

    None of her childhood photographs shows her smiling.

* * *

If you happened upon my parents as they took their Sundaystrut, pushing me forward in a top-security baby carriage,what you'd see, nailed as it were to this ponderous pram, werethree initials: FDR. My father's attitude toward Franklin DelanoRoosevelt verged on reverence. It was almost as though amember of our own family (presumably despite this and thathardship or temptation) had risen to power but then had neverforgotten his lowly origins?which is to say, Roosevelt had notforgotten "the little man," Granville Ivanhoe Jordan.

    Everything political filtered through my father on the mostpersonal, intimately emotional terms. He would speak of thisor that eminent politician as though no distance of any sortseparated our family from this man's largesse or that otherman's corruption.

    Pictures of Roosevelt and the Queen of England and theArchbishop of the Diocese of Long Island hung on our parlorwalls, not quite side by side.

    But those visual reminders were superfluous, in fact. My fatherconstantly invoked one or another world player in hisdaily conversation. And with ecstatic animation, he'd pursuehis own game of "What you t'ink the Queen gwine do if??!"

    These were not moments of fanciful speculation, however.These were test questions intended to teach my mother, orlater myself, about The Way Great People Go Through Life.

    Locally, my father somehow got the mayor, Fiorello LaGuardia, to hold me on his lap, and after that his ambitionsfor me bounded beyond the extraterrestrial.

    He was not very predictable. Yes, he'd carefully chosen theReverend Shelton Hale Bishop as my godfather. Father Bishoppresided over Harlem's St. Phillip's Episcopal Church, an augustAnglican edifice that, after my baptism, I was nevertaken to again. Apparently, attendance was not the point: Itwas official; I belonged to that fellowship. And, curiously, mygodfather, as sophisticated as my father was naive, neverthelesschose to exert himself on my behalf all the way into my teens.

    On the other hand, there was a practically self-proclaimedcharlatan on the scene who dubbed himself Father Divine. Myfather patronized his rural outpost north of the city with unapologeticfrequency. There his only child could see "real nature,"drink milk from a cow she could touch, and marvel atsteaming-hot hominy grits or crispy corn flakes with farm-freshpeaches sliced on top, their rough red hearts split intoslippery bits and pieces of the entire tantalizing display.

    These treats arrived at immaculate oilcloth-covered tabletopscourtesy of nubile volunteer followers of Father Divine,adorned by names like Hope or Faith or Peace.

    So evidently there were choices among churchly allegiances.

    But inside the Jordan household nothing about religionwas optional.

    Along with Mother Goose nursery rhymes, my mothertaught me prayers and most of the Old Testament. Her steadypresentation of Little Bo Peep Who Lost Her Sheep differed inonly one respect from her saturation recitation of the heroics ofDavid against Goliath or Moses and the parting of the waters.When it came to God, there would be no tweaking of mytoes. I was expected to learn about the Lord without rewardsof related physical pleasure. So I did.

    My mother held to her premonition about my usefulness tocolored people. And shortly before my birth she shared her expectationswith her church, the Universal Truth Center, whichwas housed above an incredibly wide and high flight of stairson West 125th Street.

    I don't think anybody minded about my mother's claims toan annunciation. It was just one more reason to praise God.

    The minister, a woman everyone called Big Momma, affecteda sequined turban and flowing sequined togas or gowns.She was the shepherd for three or four hundred colored womenwho idolized and utterly trusted her.

    I suppose it was a Christian congregation. I know that BigMomma's creed centered on the powers of the Word. If youlost your wallet, you'd say, "There is no loss in the DivineMind," and you'd believe that, and your wallet would turn up.If your neck was swollen with an elephantine thyroidal disorder,you'd say, "I am perfect in the Lord," and you'd believe itand that disorder would then shrink or disappear.

    At the Universal Truth Center, the Word was nothing toplay with.

    And every week, my mother carried me there.

    I got used to crowds of women surrounding me andprompting me "to say" anything, anything whatsoever.

    And I can't imagine what my father was doing while all ofthis went on and on!

    He must have been asleep.

    But once he heard about my precocious singing at thechurch, my singing not just the melodies but the words of thehymns, he undertook to test and to observe me, more andmore closely, for signs of intelligence.

* * *

This is when the fighting began.

    I was not yet two years old.

    Until then, I had assimilated everything from cereal andbaby blankets to rhymes and stories and I had given nothingback, so to speak, besides a toothless gurgling or a watchful,fleeting look of concentration.

    Now, my father decided, that was not enough. He wanted,he needed, to ascertain exactly what I was learning, and how.There would be no more mere listening to Sing a Song of Sixpence,a Pocketful of Rye / Four and Twenty Blackbirds Bakedin a Pie!

    It was my turn. He'd plod through a rhyme out loud, andthen I'd be tested: Could I recite that myself?

    I could.

    Well then, how much was four and twenty?

    Of course, even the question was meaningless to me.

    No matter! Clearly I must learn to count. I must pay attentionto the four and twenty pale green peas he now rolledacross the floor.

    He would teach me about numbers.

    And further, to that end, he purchased a miniature abacuswith green and blue and yellow wooden beads that easily flewback and forth on straight, colorless rods.

    I was given an illustrated hardcover Mother Goose and, alternatingwith my mother, he read to me the rhymes I had alreadymemorized.

    Next he'd encourage me to open my large new MotherGoose and "find," for example, Jack and Jill Went Up theHill.

    Done?

    Okay: Read it to him?backward.

    As he assumed control, he advised my mother that she, ineffect, had been dismissed.

    He knew what had to be done.

    He'd do it.

    I'd do it.

    She'd see, very soon, that his decision was the right decision.

    They argued about who was more likely to "spoil" or "ruin"me.

    My father's voice got loud.

    My mother didn't say much, but she never said, "Allright."

    She was fighting.

    They were fighting.

    They were fighting with each other.

    I had become the difference between them.

* * *

Thanks to his energetic outreach and persistent inquiries, myfather moved us into the Harlem River public housing projectsonly days after city officials cut the inaugural ribbon.

    I was still a baby.

    It was going to seem like paradise to me. All of the low-risered brick buildings matched rather nicely, and sapling mapletrees asserted themselves in the freshly planted dirt that borderedpedestrian paths. To the west, space enough for four lanesof traffic created a very generous conduit for natural light. Tothe east, a gigantic sloping lawn drew you down to the riverwhere tugboats and occasional cargo freighters floated by.

    That man-made valley of light to one side and the slowflowing of the river on the other never failed to salvage amorning or an afternoon from any sense of confinement ordoom.

    Whenever I was taken outside I felt like singing and, veryoften, I did just that. I sang out loud:

Jesus loves me
This I know
For the Bible
Tells me so
Little ones to Him belong
They are weak but He is strong!
Yes ...

* * *

My mother's wedding picture portrays a young woman standingin white satin and lace. It is as though this is the snapshotof a statue no one can identify. She will not move. She doesnot breathe. She stands attuned to the timing of an event shecan neither comprehend nor compromise. The slant of herbeautiful head mystifies the camera, and her lowered eyes appearto pity the bridal train of languid lace that spills past herfeet, on the floor.

    This young woman is no one I ever knew.

* * *

I was two. People asked me how old I was so often that I gotused to thinking, "I am two." My parents talked about methat way.

    They'd say, "She's two."

    I thought two was who I was.

* * *

Maybe I should have been born a boy. I think I dumbfoundedmy father. Whatever his plans and his hopes for me, he musthave noticed now and again that I, his only child, was in fact alittle girl modeling pastel sunbonnets color-coordinated withpuffy-sleeved dresses that had to accommodate just-in-casecotton handkerchiefs pinned to them.

    I'm not sure.

    Regardless of any particulars about me, he was convincedthat a "Negro" parent had to produce a child who could becomea virtual whiteman and therefore possess dignity andpower.

    Probably it seemed easier to change me than to change themeaning and complexion of power.

    At any rate, he determined he'd transform me, his daughter,into something better, something more likely to succeed.

    He taught me everything from the perspective of a recruitingwarrior. There was a war on against colored people, againstpoor people. I had to become a soldier who would rise throughthe ranks and emerge a commander of men rather than an infantrypawn.

    I would become that sturdy, brilliant soldier, or he would,well, beat me to death.

* * *

One morning when I was about two and a half years old, myfather transported me downtown, away from my mother.Everybody looked large to me, and white. We went inside theEthical Culture School and some lady kept smiling at me butI didn't know why so I watched her without saying anythingand I stayed inside my father's arms until they put me in aroom with chickens: Feathery yellow chickens!

    I had never seen chickens before and there was a funnysmell to them and they zigzagged or skittered about and I enjoyedthe whole thing.

    I'm not sure what happened there, but I guess it was a testsituation of some sort. And my test score and the teachers whoassessed me there evidently persuaded my father that he had agenius?or a monster?on his hands. And from that downtowntrip forward, anything like a regular childhood lay entirelybehind me.

    Now, whenever possible, my father would carry, prod, ortoddle me across the Harlem River Bridge, for two reasons: Todrill me in techniques of observation and to increase mybreathing stamina.

    I'd be instructed to hold my breath as long as I couldwhile noticing how many tugboats of what color passedbelow us, or how many people of what kind or age had passedus by.

    He called this "military reconnaissance training" and he explainedto me that one could never get too good at this sort ofexercise: It might save your life.

    I didn't like all the questions all of the time, but I liked itwhen he held my hand.

* * *

As usual, my father had been holding my hand when, unexpectedly,he swung me into the air by my arm, at the same time commandingme to stop that swinging of my body any way I could.But I couldn't stop it. And he lost my hand and I went flyingheadfirst into the outside corner of a stone building. This accidentsplit my forehead and there was a great deal of blood and Icould see and I could hear my father crying and yelling for help.

    I still have that scar.

* * *

When he went away to work, when my father left my motherand me alone, I was allowed to indulge my more solitary inclinations.

    My mother would position a zinc tub on the sloping lawnbehind our apartment. She'd attach a toy laundry wringer, fillthat tub halfway with water, and bring me a pile of doll'sclothing to wash and wring dry. This was bliss.

    She'd leave me there.

    My father would not suddenly appear and beat or threatenme with "the strap."

    Nobody bothered me. I could splash and play, bemused bythe creamy iridescence of soap-flake spray. I could contemplatethe watery reflections of so many no-longer-definite things: Myface or the drastic attenuation of an overhead branch. Andmeanwhile I was washing my clothes!

    I never wearied of this make-believe.

    And it was only partly not true.

    Yes, the clothes were not dirty, for starters, and, yes, I nevergot around to rinsing out the soap, but other than that I wasreally washing clothes, and when I lifted my eyes from thetub, or if I looked beyond the handle of the wringer, I couldalways see the Harlem River, always bright and always slidingalong.

    Otherwise, she'd bring out a miniature tin tea set, completewith teapot, cups, and saucers, and I'd settle one or twodolls across from me and, since I'd never seen any grown-ups"take tea," there was nothing I had to remember or emulate.

    I'd sit there and wait for "The Tea" to happen.

    And I'd continue to sit and to wait, with my dolls.

    And I liked this peculiar ritual a lot.

    But mostly, with or without my father in the house, I spentmy time reading. And mostly, I did not understand what Icould nevertheless decipher and pronounce correctly.

Continues...

Excerpted from Soldierby June Jordan Copyright © 2001 by June Jordan. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Edition details

• Publisher: Civitas Books
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0465036821
• ISBN 13: 9780465036820
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 286