June Jordan, The Poetry of Design

  Softcover, 143 pages, fully illustrated. In 1964, poet June Jordan collaborated with architect and visionary R. Buckminster Fuller on an urban design for Harlem. This study takes their partnership as a springboard to explore Jordan’s little-known contributions to environmental design during a time of great architectural foment, published in concert with a spring 2023 exhibition at the American Academy in Rome of the same name.The four scholarly essays examine how Jordan's literature, social activism, integration of the arts, and encounter with Italy as a Rome Prize winner in environmental design in 1970 shaped her design theories. Together, the texts present Jordan’s achievements as emblematic of efforts to create a future where architecture has a functional and poetic impact in the communities it is built to serve. More broadly, they expand our understanding of urbanism as an interdisciplinary and sociological phenomenon, particularly in light of the challenges facing Black American