June Jordan authored several books of poetry and essays as well as plays, a libretto, a novel, a memoir, and children’s books. A recipient of a Congressional Certificate of Special Recognition, Jordan also received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Conference of Black Writers and the PEN Center Freedom to Write Award; she was nominated for the National Book Award as well. At the University of California, Berkeley, she taught teachers to instruct poetry from a multicultural worldview. After her death from breast cancer in 2002, a school in the San Francisco School District was renamed in her honor.

Bosnia Bosnia

A Poem

by June Jordan

Too bad
there is no oil
between her legs

that 4-year-old Muslim girl and
her 5-year-old sister
and the 16-year-old babysitter
and the 20-year-old mother of that 4-year-old/that
Muslim child gang raped
from dawn to dark to time become damnation


Too bad
there is no oil
between her legs
People on couch
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