Anthony Reed on June Jordan ("In Memoriam: Martin Luther King, Jr.")

Close Readings

Anthony Reed joins the podcast to discuss June Jordan's marvelous poem "In Memoriam: Martin Luther King, Jr."

Anthony is Professor of English and the Norman L. and Roselea J. Goldberg Professor of Fine Arts at Vanderbilt University. He is the author of Freedom Time: The Poetics and Politics of Black Experimental Writing (Johns Hopkins UP, 2014) and Soundworks: Race, Sound, and Poetry in Production (Duke UP, 2021). With Vera Kutzinski, Anthony edited Langston Hughes in Context (Cambridge UP, 2022).

During the episode, I make reference to Anthony's article, "The Erotics of Mourning in Recent Experimental Black Poetry." We also listen to a recording of Jordan herself reading today's poem. Finally, you can find the transcript of Jordan's visit to Allen Ginsberg's class, during which she discusses "vertical rhythm," here.

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