• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

The Professor Is In

Guidance for all things PhD: Graduate School, Job Market and Careers

  • Home
  • Courses & Events
    • How To …
    • The Art of the Academic Cover Letter
    • The Art of the Article
    • Unstuck: The Art of Productivity
    • On Demand Courses
    • Upcoming Live Webinars
    • Free Productivity Webinars
    • Gift Certificates
  • Personalized Job Help
    • Document Editing
    • Quick Reviews
    • Specials
    • Interview Prep
    • Personal Negotiating Assistance
    • One on One Career Consults
    • Testimonials
    • Interview Testimonials
    • Graduate School Application Assistance
  • Productivity
  • Coaching
    • Productivity Coaching
    • Private Coaching
    • Leaving Academia Coaching Group
  • The Professor Is Out
    • It’s OK to Quit
    • Our Art of Leaving Program
    • Prof Is OUT Services
    • Our Prof Is OUT Team
    • Prof is OUT Client Testimonials
    • Ex-Academics: A TPIO Support Community
  • Workshops
  • Blog

I Must Become a Menace To My Enemies

By Karen Kelsky | October 8, 2018

I Must Become A Menace To My Enemies

June Jordan 1936-2002

June Millicent Jordan was a Caribbean-American poet, essayist, teacher, and activist.

1
I will no longer lightly walk behind
a one of you who fear me:
Be afraid.
I plan to give you reasons for your jumpy fits
and facial tics
I will not walk politely on the pavements anymore
and this is dedicated in particular
to those who hear my footsteps
or the insubstantial rattling of my grocery
cart
then turn around
see me
and hurry on
away from this impressive terror I must be:
I plan to blossom bloody on an afternoon
surrounded by my comrades singing
terrible revenge in merciless
accelerating
rhythms
But
I have watched a blind man studying his face.
I have set the table in the evening and sat down
to eat the news.
Regularly
I have gone to sleep.
There is no one to forgive me.
The dead do not give a damn.
I live like a lover
who drops her dime into the phone
just as the subway shakes into the station
wasting her message
canceling the question of her call:
fulminating or forgetful but late
and always after the fact that could save or
condemn me

I must become the action of my fate.

2
How many of my brothers and my sisters
will they kill
before I teach myself
retaliation?

Shall we pick a number?
South Africa for instance:
do we agree that more than ten thousand
in less than a year but that less than
five thousand slaughtered in more than six
months will
WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH ME?

I must become a menace to my enemies.

3
And if I
if I ever let you slide
who should be extirpated from my universe
who should be cauterized from earth
completely
(lawandorder jerkoffs of the first the
terrorist degree)
then let my body fail my soul
in its bedeviled lecheries

And if I
if I ever let love go
because the hatred and the whisperings
become a phantom dictate I o-
bey in lieu of impulse and realities
(the blossoming flamingos of my
wild mimosa trees)
then let love freeze me
out.
I must become
I must become a menace to my enemies.

Copyright © 2017 by the June M. Jordan Literary Estate.  www.junejordan.com.

Similar Posts:

  • Feminist Elites and Patriarchal Solidarity – Guest Post by Maggie Levantovskaya
  • An Open Letter to the Department of Africana Studies at the University of Delaware – WOC Guest Post
  • Sexual Harassment in the Academy: What I Tell Reporters

Filed Under: #MeTooPhD

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Primary Sidebar

  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Twitter

Buy My Book!

4.8 stars on Amazon!

The_Professor_Is_In.indd

Get Immediate Help

In addition to our blog and book, we have upcoming live webinars, pre-recorded webinars and other programs that you can get started on right away:

The Art of the Academic Cover Letter
The Art of the Article
Unstuck: The Art of Productivity
Quick Reviews
Free Productivity Webinars

Categories

  • #MeTooPhD
  • Academic Job Search
    • How To Choose and Manage Recommenders
    • How to Interview
    • How To Write Academic Job Cover Letters
    • How To Write CVs
    • Landing Your Tenure Track Job
    • Major Job Market Mistakes
    • Negotiating Offers
  • Adjunct Issues
  • Advising Advice
  • Alt-University Critique
  • Black Lives Matter
  • COVID19
  • Dispatches
  • Goodbye Ivory Towers
  • Graduate Student Concerns
    • Bad Advisors and Good Mentors
  • How To Do Conferences
  • How to Get Grants and Fellowships
  • International Perspectives
  • Intersectional Analyses
  • Makeup
  • Marginalized Voices
  • Mental Health and Academia
  • Ph.D. Poverty
  • Podcast
  • Post-Ac Free-Lancing and Small Business
  • Post-Ac Job Search
    • Careers Outside
  • Postdoc Issues
  • Productivity
    • Book Proposals and Contracts
    • Publishing Issues
    • Writing
  • Promote Yourself!
  • Quitting–An Excellent Option
  • Racism in the Academy
  • Rearview Mirror
  • Resumes & Postac Docs
  • Sexual Harassment in the Academy
  • Shame
  • Stop.Acting.Like.A.Grad.Student
  • Strategizing Your Success in Academia
  • Teaching and Research Statements
  • Teaching Demos
  • Teaching Portfolios
  • Tenure–How To Get It
    • How To Build Your Tenure File
    • Surviving Assistant Professorhood
  • The Campus Visit
  • Unstuck
  • Webinars
  • What Not To Wear
  • Women of Color in Academia
  • Work/Life Balance in Academia
  • Yes, You Can: Women in Academia
  • Your Second and Third Jobs

Footer

About Us

  • Who Is Dr. Karen?
  • Who Is On the TPII Team?
  • In The News
  • Contact Me
  • FAQs
    • Why Trust Me?
  • Testimonials

Community

  • #MeTooPhD
  • Peer Editing
  • PhD Debt Survey
  • Support Fund
  • I Help With Custody Cases for Academics

Copyright © 2023 The Professor Is In·

We Are Redefining Academic Community

That’s why we upgraded our private
Mighty Network.

We are committed to building a community with a focus on productivity support. Every day, in a dedicated space, we offer free coaching advice and encouragement. And the couple thousand people who have already joined are steadily building a supportive and interactive community devoted to that elusive idea of work-life balance.

Learn More

Get on Dr. Karen's Schedule

Get on my schedule to work on your tenure track job cover letter, CV, grant applications, book proposals, interview preparation, and more.  [si-contact-form form=’2′]