A new edition of this classic collection of essays from June Jordan’s influential poetry workshops, designed to bring poetry back to the people, featuring a foreword by Hanif Abdurraqib and an introduction by Samiya Bashir

First published in 1995, June Jordan's Poetry for the People describes how to build a grassroots poetry program in your classroom, living room, or local cafe. This peek at student work and instant classics by influential poets such as US poet laureate Joy Harjo will inspire people young and old to become practicing poets.

Poetry for the People celebrates explorative poetry as a communal, oral art form. With clear strategies for how to critique poems and facilitate a poetry workshop discussion, this easy-to-use, timely reference is perfect for self-taught writers, groups of friends and teachers of poetry at any level from colleges to public libraries, university writers' centers to community-based workshops from prisons to bookstores.

The book features essays by Adrienne Rich and Joy Harjo, as well as interviews with June’s contemporaries Ntozake Shange, Leroy Quintana, Alfred Arteaga, Janice Gould, Dan Bellm, and Marilyn Chin, who comment on the canon. It also includes bibliographies of multicultural poetry, gay and lesbian poetry, deaf poetry, and poetry for and by children. June Jordan's Poetry for the People testifies to the group spirit that made her poetry workshops so powerful.