Joy Harjo: Poet with a Midwestern Charm
How We Became Human: New and Selected
Poems: 1975-2001 (2002)
A Map to the Next World: Poems and Tales (2001)
The Good Luck Cat (2000)
A Map to the Next World (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)
The Last Song (1975)
"Sacred space--I call it a place of grace, or the place in which we're most human--the place in which there's a unity of human-ness with wolf-ness, with hummingbird-ness, with Sandia Mountain-ness with rain cloud-ness? . . .It's that place in which we understand there is no separation between worlds. It has everything to do with the way we live. The land is responsible for the clothes you have on, for my saxophone, for the paper that I write these things on, for our bodies. It's responsible for everything." -Joy Harjo
The Multi-Talented Muskogee Creek Poet
The Muskogee Creek heritage, tribal memories, freedom, love of nature, and survival skills all inspired Joy Harjo to write her unique poetry that "challenges the prevailing boundaries of southwestern writers." Growing up in the Muskogee Creek Tribe, Harjo was born on May 9, 1951 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Alexander Posey, another creek poet, inspired Harjo as she was growing up in Oklahoma. She attended the University of New Mexico for the painting and theatre program, but started writing poetry when the national Indian political climate was seeking vocalists and speakers. Harjo received a BA from The University of New Mexico in 1976, and then was further educated at the University of Iowa and earned a MFA in 1978. Harjo's education experience opened her up to create poetry that symbolizes her Native American heritage.
Harjo shares the desires of the Navajo Beauty Way with Luci Tapahanso, another Native American poet and relates to Simon Ortiz's pueblo stories, despite their different backgrounds. Such works as The Woman Who Fell From the Sky (1994) went on to win the Oklahoma Book Arts Award and In Mad Love and War (1990) won the American Book Award and the Delmare Schwartz Memorial Award. While her poetry was being recognized, she took the ideas that inspired her to write her poetry and began to produce music lyrics. Harjo's talent is not only targeted to poetry and song writing, but she also creates scripts and screen plays. Her love of nature and tribal memories has not only persuaded her to grow as a poet, but to become an editor, filmmaker, artist, and photographer. She currently resides in New Mexico, where she is not far from her roots of Native American Muskogee Creek culture. Joy Harjo feels strongly about her heritage and the surroundings that have driven her to be such an original poet.