Joy Harjo

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Joy Harjo
"If we cry more tears we will ruin the land with
salt instead let's praise that which would
distract us with despair. Make a song for death,
a song for yellow teeth and bad breath" --Joy
Harjo, from "Mourning Song"

• 1951-

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Equinox

• I must keep from breaking into the story by force
• for if I do I will find myself with a war club in
  my hand
• and the smoke of grief staggering toward the sun,
• your nation dead beside you.
• I keep walking away though it has been an
  eternity
• and from each drop of blood
• springs up sons and daughters, trees,
• a mountain of sorrows, of songs.
• I tell you this from the dusk of a small city in
  the north
• not far from the birthplace of cars and industry.
• Geese are returning to mate and crocuses have
• broken through the frozen earth.
• Soon they will come for me and I will make my
  stand
• before the jury of destiny. Yes, I will answer in
  the clatter
• of the new world, I have broken my addiction to
  war
• and desire. Yes, I will reply, I have buried the
  dead

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"The term poetic justice is a term of grace,
expressing how justice can appear in the world
despite forces of confusion and destruction. The
band takes its name from this term because all of
us have worked for justice in our lives, through
any means possible and through music." -Joy
Harjo Some Interesting Facts

• She was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
• She is a member of the Muskogee Tribe.
• She learned about her Indian heritage through her
  great aunt.
• She had a band, Joy Harjo and Poetic Justice in
  Denver.
• She has a CD Native Joy.
• She plays tenor saxophone.
• She has poems that discuss why Indians drink and
  are lured into alcoholism.
• She was a teacher at the Institute of American
  Indian Arts, Arizona State University, University
  of Colorado, and the University of New Mexico.
• She was an Instructor at Santa Fe Community
  College.
• She has written some short stories.
• She has a granddaughter who inspires her to keep
  writing.

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Autobiography

• We lived next door to the bootlegger, and were
• lucky.The bootlegger reigned. We were a stolen
• people in a stolen land. Oklahoma meant defeat.
  But
• the sacred lands have their own plans, seep
  through
• fingers of the alcohol spirit. Nothing can be
• forgotten, only left behind.
• Last week I saw the river where the hickory
• stood this homeland doesn't predict a legacy of
  
• malls and hotels. Dreams aren't glass and steel
  but
• made from the hearts of the deer, the blazing
  eye of a
• circling panther. Translating them was to
  understand
• the death count from Alabama, the destruction of
  
• grandchildren, famine of stories. I didn't think
  I
• could stand it. My father couldn't. He searched
  out
• his death with the vengence of a warrior who has
• been the hunted. It's in our blood.
• Even at two I knew we were different. Could see

• By then I was confused.
• At five I was designated to string beads in
• kindergarten. At seven I knew how to play chicken
• and win. And at fourteen I was drinking.
• I found myself in a city in the Southwest at
• twenty-one, when my past came into focus. It was
• near midnight. We were walking home and there he
• was, curled in the snow on the sidewalk, that man
• from Jemez. We had all been cheated. He hid his
• shame beneath a cold, downy blanket. We hid ours
• in poems. We took him home, where he shivered
• and cried through the night like a fighting
  storm,
• then woke in the morning, knowing nothing. Later
  I
• would see him on the street, the same age I am
  now.
• It was my long dark hair that cued his daughter,
  the
• chili, the songs. And I talked to him as if he
  were my
• father, with that respect, that hunger.

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Education

• At the Institute of American Indian Arts in New
  Mexico she took up theatre and painting.
• At the University of Mexico she received her B.A.
  in 1976.
• At the University of Iowa, in 1978 she received
  her MFA (Creative Writing).
• She also took a course in Filmmaking from the
  Anthropology FilmCenter.

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Joyous Work(Poem Books)

• We Became Human New and Selected Poems (W.W.
  Norton Co., 2002)
• A Map to the Next World Poems (2000)
• The Woman Who Fell From the Sky (1994)
• In Mad Love and War (1990)
• Secrets from the Center of the World (1989)
• She Had Some Horses (1983)
• What Moon Drove Me to This? (1979).
• Reinventing the Enemy's Language
• the Spiral Memory

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Joyous Awards

• The American Indian Distinguished Achievement in
  the Arts Award, 1990
• The Josephine Miles Poetry Award, 1991
• The Mountains and Plains Booksellers Award, 1991
• The William Carlos Williams Award, 1991
• Fellowships from the Arizona Commission on the
  Arts, 1989
• Academy of American Poetry Award, 1977
• Wordcraft Circle Writer of the Year (Recording -
  CD/Audiocassette) Award, 1998
• The Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native
  Writers Circle of The Americas, 1997
• The New Mexico Governor's Award for Excellence in
  the Arts,1997
• Musical Artist of the Year, 1996-1997
• The American Book Award from the Before Columbus
  Foundation in 1991 for In Mad Love and War
• The Oakland PEN, 1991
• The Bravo Award from the Albuquerque Arts
  Alliance, 1996
• The Oklahoma Book Arts Award, 1995
• The Witter Bynner Poetry Fellowship, 1994
• The Woodrow Wilson Fellowship at Green Mountain
  College in Poultney, VT, 1993
• An Honorary Doctorate from Benedictine College,
  1992
• The National Endowment for the Arts Creative
  Writing Fellowships in 1992 and 1978
• The Delmore Schwartz Memorial Award from New York
  University, 1991

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Works Cited

• http//www.hanksville.org/storytellers/joy/poems/a
  utobiography.html
• http//www.joyharjo.com
• http//www.poets.org/poets/poets.cfm?prmID61
• http//www.miracosta.cc.ca.us/home/gfloren/harjo.h
  tm
• http//www.princeton.edu/naap/harjo.html
• http//www.silverwave.com/harjo.html
• http//www.geocities.com/SoHo/Study/8072/AR/Joy_Ha
  rjo.html