For more than 30 years, poet Joy Harjo, of Muskogee Nation heritage, has evoked the landscape of the Southwest with language steeped in American native cultures and visionary lyricism. From ancient, earth-centered rituals to contemporary challenges, she explores the lives and experiences of indigenous Americans with poignant, poetic brilliance. Harjo's many-faceted artistic life includes the poetry collections She Had Some Horses and the American Book--award winning In Mad Love and War, as well as her new memoir Crazy Brave and stints playing saxophone in Joy Harjo and the Arrow Dynamics Band. Harjo traces her journey from a hardscrabble Oklahoma childhood and shares the poetry that has made her one of the most compelling and treasured voices in indigenous American literature.
Joy Harjo was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma and is an internationally known poet, performer, writer, and saxophone player of the Mvskoke/Creek Nation. Her seven books of poetry include How We Became Human: New and Selected Poems, The Woman Who Fell From the Sky, and She Had Some Horses, all published by W.W. Norton. Her memoir, Crazy Brave, was published this year.
This program is presented in partnership with the Poetry Foundation.