June Jordan (July 9, 1936-June 14, 2002) was an African-American bisexual political activist, writer, poet, and teacher, born in Harlem, New York, to Jamaican immigrants.
Jordan's first published book, Who Look at Me, appeared in 1969, was a collection of poems for children. Twenty-seven more books followed in her lifetime, one (Some of Us Did Not Die, Collected and New Essays) was in press when she died. One more has been published posthumously (a re-issue of the 1970 poetry collection "SoulScript", edited by Jordan). Publication of her Complete Poems is scheduled for Fall, 2005. Her autobiographical Soldier: A Poet's Childhood came out in 2000. She was also an essayist, columnist for The Progressive, novelist, biographer, and librettist for the musical/opera I Was Looking at the Ceiling and Then I Saw the Sky, composed by John Adams and produced by Peter Sellars.