Joy Harjo
Joy Harjo
Joy Harjois a Mvskoke poet, musician, and author. She is often cited as playing a formidable role in the second wave of what critic Kenneth Lincoln termed the Native American Renaissance of the late 20th century. She is the author of such books as Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings, Crazy Brave, and How We Became Humans: New and Selected Poems 1975 - 2002...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth9 May 1951
CountryUnited States of America
eye born
I was born with eyes that can never close...
horse sky rainbow
In Isleta the rainbow was a crack in the universe. We saw the barest of all life that is possible. Bright horses rolled over and over the dusking sky.
pain suffering-of-others true-power
True power does not amass through the pain and suffering of others.
suicidal chicago east
The woman hanging from the 13th floor window on the east side of Chicago is not alone...She is all the women of the apartment building who stand watching her, watching themselves.
differences trying doctrine
My sister accommodates me, never reproaches me with her doctrine, never tries to change me. She accepts and loves me, despite our differences.
children soul sides
Someone accompanies every soul from the other side when it enters this place. Usually it is an ancestor with whom that child shares traits and gifts
spiritual hands language
Because Music is a language that lives in the spiritual realms, we can hear it, we can notate it and create it, but we cannot hold it in our hands
powerful father weather
My father told me that some voices are so true they can be used as weapons, can maneuver the weather, change time. He said that a voice that powerful can walk away from the singer if it is shamed. After my father left us, I learned that some voices can deceive you. There is a top layer and there is a bottom, and they don't match.
cousin attitude thinking
I spoke with the crows before leaving for Los Angeles. They were the resident storytellers whose strident and insistent voices added the necessary dissonance for color. They had cousins in California, and gave me their names and addresses, told me to look them up. They warned me, too, what they had heard about attitude there. And they were right. Attitude was thick, hung from the would-be's and has-beens and think-they-ares, so thick that I figured it was the major source of the smog.
journey roots knowing
I listen to the gunfire we cannot hear, and begin this journey with the light of knowing the root of my own furious love.
stars past dust
I can hear the sizzle of newborn stars, and know anything of meaning, of the fierce magic emerging here. I am witness to flexible eternity, the evolving past, and I know we will live forever, as dust or breath in the face of stars, in the shifting pattern of winds.
house red earth
My house is the red earth . . . .
animal tree alive
Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their families, their histories too. Talk to them, listen to them. They are alive poems.
sweet blow people
The saxophone is so human. Its tendency is to be rowdy, edgy, talk too loud, bump into people, say the wrong words at the wrong time, but then, you take a breath all the way from the center of the earth and blow. All that heartache is forgiven. All that love we humans carry makes a sweet, deep sound and we fly a little.