June Jordan, though exhausted, reads “Poem for a Young Poet” on request (2001)
June Jordan was a Kelly Writers House Fellow in 2001. She was battling through hard treatment for cancer and her usual great strength was diminished, and when toward the end of her public reading a student asked for a reprise of “Poem for a Young Poet” I could tell that she was a bit tired of being asked to read that poem. But then she did and gave an inspiring performance of it, such that all the young poets in the room—and there were many—took heart from it. And then in turn lifted *her* spirits & the rest of the evening with her was full of awe and magic. Here is a YouTube clip of her reading that poem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sN_4FB3ito
Al Filreis is Kelly Professor, Faculty Director of the Kelly Writers House, Director of the Center
for Programs in Contemporary Writing, Co-Director of PennSound, and Publisher of Jacket2—all at the University of Pennsylvania. Among his books are Secretaries of the Moon,
Wallace Stevens & the Actual World, Modernism from Left to Right, and Counter-Revolution of the Word: The Conservative Attack on Modern Poetry, 1945-60. His new book is 
Founder/Faculty Director, 