#joy harjo

[arcaneweaving]

the lovers’ promise

“Epitaph” by Marina Tsvetaeva in Poems to A Son // Sula by Toni Morrison // Written on the Body by Jeanette Winterson // “Postcolonial Love Poem” by Natalie Diaz // “Not for a Nation” by Edna St. Vincent Millay in From Mine to Harvest // “The Real Revolution is Love” by Joy Harjo in How We Became Human // Near to the Wild Heart by Clarice Lispector // “Fragments From a Parable” by June Jordan in Directed by Desire // “Native Soil” by Anna Akhmatova in Northern Elegies

[metamorphesque]

to the person in the bell jar...

Sylvia Plath, from ‘The Unabridged Journals Of Sylvia Plath’ / Vilhelm Hammershøi / Nicole Krauss, from ‘The History of Love’ / Ramon Casas / Joy Harjo, from ‘Speaking Tree’ / D S (saatchiart) / Fyodor Dostoevsky, from ‘The Idiot’ / Aleardo Terzi / Sylvia Plath, from ‘The Bell Jar’

[undinesea]

—to be opened, shivering and wet with love.

Joy Harjo, from “Four Songs,” from A Map to the Next World

[typewriter-worries]

It's world poetry day so here are some of my favorite poems:

Failing and Flying by Jack Gilbert

What the Living Do by Marie Howe

Night Walk by Franz Wright

Crossword by Lloyd Schwartz

The Great Fires by Jack Gilbert

Love Train by Tomás Q. Morín

Divorced Fathers and Pizza Crusts by Mark Halliday

Perhaps the World Ends Here by Joy Harjo

in another string of the multiverse, perhaps by Michaella Batten

acknowledgments by Danez Smith

Death Wish by Josh Alex Baker

San Francisco by Richard Brautigan

How to Watch Your Brother Die by Michael Lassell

You Are the Penultimate Love of My Life by Rebecca Hazelton

On Political(ized) Life by Kanika Lawton

All the Dead Boys Look Like Me by Christopher Soto

It Was the Animals by Natalie Diaz

In Time by W.S. Merwin

It Is Maybe Time to Admit That Michael Jordan Definitely Pushed Off by Hanif Abdurraqib

Dear Life by Maya C. Popa

I Could Touch It by Ellen Bass

To The Young Who Want To Die by Gwendolyn Brooks

Accident Report in the Tall, Tall Weeds by Ada Limón

[apoemaday]

Don't Bother the Earth Spirit

by Joy Harjo

Don’t bother the earth spirit who lives here. She is working on a story. It is the oldest story in the world and it is delicate, changing. If she sees you watching she will invite you in for coffee, give you warm bread, and you will be obligated to stay and listen. But this is no ordinary story. You will have to endure earthquakes, lightning, the deaths of all those you love, the most blinding beauty. It’s a story so compelling you may never want to leave; this is how she traps you. See that stone finger over there? That is the only one who ever escaped.

[andrumedus]

There is an ache that begins in the sound of an old blues song. It becomes a house where all the lights have gone out but one. And it burns and burns until there is only the blue smoke of dawn and everyone is sleeping in someone's arms even the flowers even the sound of a thousand silences. And the arms of night in the arms of day. Everyone except me.

Joy Harjo, In Mad Love and War; “Summer Night”

[lifeinpoetry]

I’m not afraid of love or its consequence of light.

— Joy Harjo, from "The Creation Story," Weaving Sundown in a Scarlet Light

[fawnaura]

Call your spirit back. It may be caught in corners and creases of shame, judgment, and human abuse. You must call in a way that your spirit will want to return. Speak to it as you would to a beloved child. Welcome your spirit back from its wandering. It may return in pieces, in tatters. Gather them together. They will be happy to be found after being lost for so long. Your spirit will need to sleep awhile after it is bathed and given clean clothes. Now you can have a party. Invite everyone you know who loves and supports you. Keep room for those who have no place else to go. Make a giveaway, and remember, keep the speeches short. Then, you must do this: help the next person find their way through the dark.

Joy Harjo, from Weaving Sundown in a Scarlet Light, "For Calling The Spirit Back From Wandering The Earth in its Human Feet"

[forever70s]

Joy Harjo, circa late 1970s

[poetrysmackdown]

[uwmspeccoll]

Voices of the Land

What better way to celebrate Indigenous Peoples’ Day than to highlight this landmark anthology that commemorates the Indigenous Peoples of North America? When the Light of the World was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through: A Norton Anthology of Native Nations Poetry, edited by Joy Harjo with Leanne Howe, Jennifer Elise Foerster, is a curated collection that features the poetry of 160 poets each showcasing a distinct voice from nearly 100 Indigenous Nations. This is the first edition from 2020, published by W. W. Norton & Company in New York.

The anthology is the first to provide a historically comprehensive collection of Native poetry. The literary traditions of Native Americans, the original poets of this country, date back centuries. The book opens with a blessing from Pulitzer Prize winner American Kiowa/Cherokee N. Scott Momaday (1934-2024) and contains introductions from contributing editors for five geographically organized sections. Each section begins with a poem from traditional oral literature and closes with emerging poets, creating a rich and diverse tapestry of Indigenous voices.

Joy Harjo, a member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, is a prominent figure in the literary world. She is known for her work as a poet, musician, playwright, and author. In addition to her contributions to literature, Harjo is also a celebrated performer and has released several albums combining poetry and music. In 2019, she made history by becoming the first Native American United States Poet Laureate and only the second to serve three terms. Throughout her career, Harjo has been a vocal advocate for Indigenous rights and has used her art to shed light on the experiences of Native peoples.

The following is an excerpt from Harjo’s introduction to this work:

“The anthology then is a way to pass on the poetry that has emerged from rich traditions of the very diverse cultures of indigenous peoples from these indigenous lands, to share it. Most readers will have no idea that there is or was a single Native poet, let alone the number included in this anthology. Our existence as sentient human beings in the establishment of this country was denied. Our presence is still an afterthought, and fraught with tension, because our continued presence means that the mythic storyline of the founding of this country is inaccurate. The United States is a very young country and has been in existence for only a few hundred years. Indigenous peoples have been here for thousands upon thousands of years and we are still here.”

View other Indigenous Peoples' Day posts.

View other posts from our Native American Literature Collection.

-Melissa (Stockbridge-Munsee), Special Collections Graduate Intern

We acknowledge that in Milwaukee we live and work on traditional Potawatomi, Ho-Chunk, and Menominee homelands along the southwest shores of Michigami, part of North America’s largest system of freshwater lakes, where the Milwaukee, Menominee, and Kinnickinnic rivers meet and the people of Wisconsin’s sovereign Anishinaabe, Ho-Chunk, Menominee, Oneida, and Mohican nations remain present.

[soracities]

Poetry is not a career — it is a state of being. You become poetry or are in a state of becoming with poetry. My chronological map of becoming would not be linear, rather it has been crisscrossed with arcs of events, poems, poets, arts, music, all bound and directed by history and memory.

Joy Harjo, from "The Craft of Writing: Joy Harjo on listening and writing with intention"

[metamorphesque]

— Speaking Tree, Joy Harjo

[text ID: I carry a yearning I cannot bear alone in the dark—]

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

The sorta literal translation from the arabic is so much more beautiful ::

“From here rose the first written letter, (finding its way) to every point on earth”

* * * *

“When I began to listen to poetry, it’s when I began to listen to the stones, and I began to listen to what the clouds had to say, and I began to listen to other. And I think, most importantly for all of us, then you begin to learn to listen to the soul, the soul of yourself in here, which is also the soul of everyone else.”

— Joy Harjo (via mythologyofblue)

[seemoreandmore]

The heart has uncountable rooms.

Joy Harjo, from the poem, “Becoming Seventy

[apoemaday]

Ah-Ah

by Joy Harjo

Ah, ah cries the crow arching toward the heavy sky over the marina. Lands on the crown of the palm tree.

Ah, ah slaps the urgent cove of ocean swimming through the slips. We carry canoes to the edge of the salt.

Ah, ah groans the crew with the weight, the winds cutting skin. We claim our seats. Pelicans perch in the draft for fish.

Ah, ah beats our lungs and we are racing into the waves. Though there are worlds below us and above us, we are straight ahead.

Ah, ah tattoos the engines of your plane against the sky — away from these waters. Each paddle stroke follows the curve from reach to loss.

Ah, ah calls the sun from a fishing boat with a pale, yellow sail. We fly by on our return, over the net of eternity thrown out for stars.

Ah, ah scrapes the hull of my soul. Ah, ah.