Joy Harjo has been named Poet Laureate of the United States. Perhaps more than any before her, her story is the fractured story of America.
Born in Tulsa, Harjo is a member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation. Her work is rooted in that heritage and reflects the shattered image of history which is not taught as part of mainstream education. As she told the New York Times, “My poems are about confronting the kind of society that would diminish Native people, disappear us from the story of this country.”
She uses the stories and histories of the Muscogee (Creek) and binds them with the feminist and social justice causes that continue the Indians’ quest for acknowledgement. Welded together they create a soft, powerful voice found in poems that rise and fall like a ululation.
Harjo earned a bachelors’ degree at the University of New Mexico and a masters’ of fine art from the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, part of the University of Iowa. Although Harjo went to New Mexico to study painting, it was there she began to hear poetry and become more aware of Native poets. And it was while in New Mexico she accepted that poetry was for everyone and was part of her own spirit.
She published her first book of eight poems in 1975 and since that time has gone on to write eight books of poetry, two books for youngsters and her own memoirs, ‘Crazy Brave.’
That memoir draws a picture of growing up in an abusive household, substance use and abuse, and becoming a mother while still in her teens. The resilience generated by circumstance is an underlying tone in much of Harjo’s work.
In ‘She Had Some Horses,’ Harjo writes, “She had horses who waited for destruction. She had horses who waited for resurrection.” The line shows the coping mechanism of someone – a woman, a Native, a person who has seen poverty and experienced repression, yet takes the long game view of making their voice and causes heard.
Her heartrending words build a world where it isn’t necessary to subject what the heart knows to what the world sees. Instead they recognize the heart as superior to the brain, using a depth of texture and meaning that flow without getting in their own way.
Harjo has publicly recognized the meaning of being the first Native Poet Laureate, because it includes the acknowledgement of the place indigenous people hold in American history and the part Native poetry takes in the literature of America.
The position, which comes with a small stipend, is correctly the Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress. The term is generally about a year and during that time the seated Laureate works to promote writing, reading and appreciating poetry in the United States.
More about Harjo and her work can be found on her website at www.joyharjo.com.