Poetric Form in June Jordan's Soldier

Throughout June Jordan’s Soldier I was struck by her effective and seemless intersection of prose and poetic form. The use of poetic form mimicked the childhood initiation of nursery rhymes highlighting these sections as a point in which the young June is actively learning something new. The enjambment causes the reader to slow down, take pauses and read more carefully creating the effect of time ‘slowing down.’ The fragmentation allows the reader to ‘read between the lines’ of what is happening and what the impact is on the narrator. The poetry seems to come in places of ‘rites of passage’ where June is in situations that force her to mature or approach life in a new way. While the poetic form can signal disruption, the rhythmic, repetitive quality also has the effect of taking a particular moment within the context of something that happens over and over, or whose resonance continues beyond the event.

The first ‘poetry’ in the book comes in the form of nursery rhymes that June’s mother sings to her as a baby. Rather than just say the name of the nursery rhyme--which are so common that every American reader probably knows them by heart--Jordan chooses to put the whole line in there. The effect of this, for me, was to put the reader into the scene. By reading the familiar words, the reader feels the familiar, gentleness of the rhymes as a baby might. In actually reading the rhymes, the reader also embodies the mother repeating them to the child. I think that because the rhymes are so universally known, it allows the reader to draw upon their own emotional memory.

The next place where the poetic form is used is after June reads ‘The Ugly Duckling’.

“I thought I understood that story,

and I didn’t believe it,

and I kept reading it to myself,

over and over.”

(Jordan, 23)

In writing her response to the book in poetic form, Jordan links this experience to that of the childhood nursery rhymes--she is absorbing information about the outside world through these stories. It also slows down the pace of the story, just as June is slowing down and narrowing her focus on the racially charged imagery of the story. I thought that it was pointed to show the beginnings of consciousness about race and racism through such a seemingly benign story as the Ugly Duckling. To me, it echoed the ‘Old Woman who Lived in a Shoe’ rhyme which she laughed at as a baby, but speaks to a woman beating her kids and sending them to bed hungry. The impact of this moment is stronger because the pace slows down.

In a scene of June interceding in a violent fight between her father and mother, Jordan again slows down the pace but the enjambment in this section elicits a further sense of disruption.

And he

berserk with fury lifted

chair or frying pan

and I’d attack

in her defense: “No

(Jordon, 72)

In breaking up sentences, time is not only slowed but fragmented. This creates a ‘slow motion’ effect that  heightens the intensity of the scene. It also speaks to the breaking down of any sort of normalcy or predictability. It also adds to the frantic feeling of the young narrator confronting her father and defending her mother.The tense throughout this passage is past conditional (is that right?)--it locates physical actions and objects but it talks about something that occurs frequently. On the next page, after the fight, the lines are still broken but they are longer--things have calmed down but the fragmentation caused by the fight is still present.

Jordan also uses poetry when describing her father suggesting acute focus and attention to detail. She describes him eating a grapefruit.

He runs water to clean the sink.

He devours each section, one by one.

He tilts his chin toward the ceiling.

(Jordon, 149)

Jordan is able to relay a lot of information in this section. The narrator is keenly aware of the actions of her father, revealing their complicated relationship that seems to contain both reverence and fear. It also reveals a lot about her father’s character. He is meticulous, doing things in steps mimicked by the litany of actions. He is singularly focused and intent on doing things ‘his way’ rather than the way that might please others. This poetic series is broken when June’s father responds to her mother, who asks him why he can’t eat a grapefruit like a normal man. The hypnotic focus of the father in his ‘natural’ state is broken by his response. It feels as though we are jolted back to the present moment and the reality of the familial situation.

The last lines of the book are also in poetic format. I found this really poignant and effective in portraying the emotion of the scene.

“‘Okay! Little Soldier! G’wan! G’wan!

You gwine make me proud!’

And I could hear nothing else

And I wondered who would meet my train.”

(Jordan, 261)

Again, the pace is slowed and the impact of this moment is measured. The use of dialogue within the poetic form, to me, makes it feel as though these words have been internalized and resonate more deeply because this form gives them more space. The lack of punctuation in the line “And I could hear nothing else” makes it seem more ‘quiet’ to me because there is no definitive end. It hovers, alone. The spacing of this form also points the aloneness and the unknown--there is more blank space on the page. The ending left me satisfied AND wanting to know more.

There were many other times that poetic form was used and I wonder what your thoughts on in are.