Poem about My Rights

One of the most conspicuous aspects of this poem is its length and lack of stanza breaks; this analysis section uses various narrative turns to determine sections of the poem. Additionally, though, while the poem does not explicitly name June Jordan as the speaker, this is implied by the description of “My Rights” in the title as well as the first person perspective used throughout. This guide refers to the speaker or speaker of the poem; other analyses could engage with a reading of the poem interpreting it as an autobiographical piece by Jordan.

In Lines 1-20, the speaker enters a direct stream-of-consciousness narrative. While this style is largely retained throughout the poem, it is most pronounced in this section as the speaker uses repetitive phrasing to build the intensity of ideas. The straightforward tone in this section is enhanced by multiple negative statements: The speaker “can’t go out” (Lines 2-3), “can’t do what I want / to do” (Lines 7-8), and “could not go” (Line 15). Building on this is the speaker’s use of other descriptors like being “the wrong / sex the wrong age the wrong skin” (Lines 8-9) and repeating words like “alone” (Lines 5, 6, 19), and “silence” (Line 14). The speaker’s sense of being unable to do things, including be herself, create this atmosphere of isolation. By writing in the first person perspective in a personal monologue, Jordan invites the reader into the speaker's perspective and experiences, which is important to the rest of the poem.

The narrative style of the poem remains consistent in the next section of the poem, which is marked by a turn in the content. The transition is marked by an interrogative “who in the hell set things up / like this” (Lines 21-22), which is the first address outside of the first-person point-of-view. This turn is also emphasized by a section of shorter lines between Line 16 and Line 22; the speaker then returns to longer lines to describe circumstances beyond her direct experiences.

In the middle of the poem, Jordan’s speaker describes violence against women on a global scale. The speaker’s perspective is intentionally used here to create a horrifying mood: The speaker describes how

if he

and his buddies fuck me after that

then I consented and there was

no rape (Lines 27-30).

Jordan calls to attention the ways various countries, engaged in colonization and imperialism, effectively “penetrat[e]” (Line 35) one another.

The poem shifts yet again here, as the speaker changes to using first person plural perspective to connect with her “kinsmen and women” (Line 41) resisting these violent acts. With this new voice, the speaker establishes the key thematic element of the intersection of racism, sexism, and colonization (See: Themes): “We are the wrong people of / the wrong skin on the wrong continent” (Lines 45-46). The continued repetition of the word “wrong” is used here to highlight the violence of a world that views some people as less than and therefore oppressed. While most of the rest of the poem is dictated in the first person, this can be viewed as a critical climactic moment.

As the poem moves towards the conclusion, the speaker returns to a more autobiographical tone in which she questions the ways her family experiences reflect the world’s sexism and racism. These lines, which describe her “father saying I was wrong” (Line 58) and “mother pleading plastic surgery for / my nose” (Lines 64-65) are then connected to the “problems of the C.I.A. / and the problems of South Africa” (Lines 68-69). In other words, the speaker relates her personal history of oppression to the larger scale, concluding that “the problems / turn out to be / me” (Lines 74-76). The connection between personal experience and the larger sociopolitical context are an important feature of this poem and are describes more thoroughly in the themes section: the personal as political.

The concluding section of the poem, marked by an anaphoric section (See: Literary Devices) where the speaker describes herself as “the history of” (Lines 77, 78, 79, and 81), builds on all the other images and scenes of the poem to land a profound and painful conclusion. The speaker continues using repetitive yet unstructured phrasing to connect personal experiences like “walking out at night” (Line 84) to the “sanctity of [her] national boundaries” (Line 87). The interconnected imagery used in these final lines create a kind of cage around the reader from which there is no escape from being “wrong” (Lines 94, 95, 96, 97). With the final lines of the poem, however, Jordan’s speaker flips this idea, stating, “I am not wrong: Wrong is not my name” (Line 109, italics original). The speaker’s “resistance” (Line 112) to all of the aforementioned violent and oppressive experiences and systems becomes the point of the poem. The speaker’s “Rights” (Title) are that she is able to establish her own “daily and nightly self-determination” (Line 113).

One other critical turn of the final four lines of the poem is the shift to the second person; Jordan uses “you” to suddenly and directly address the reader. In this section, the person addressed is also the person who has been trying to oppress the speaker. The conclusion of the poem is that the speaker’s “resistance / […] may very well cost you your life” (Lines 112-14). Where the rest of the poem focuses on the violence done to the speaker, these lines reflect a complete shift of the speaker’s perspective: Her own confidence and “self-determination” (Line 113) are a threat to the person responsible for the oppressing.