Native American Women Poets – Joy Harjo

The Native American heritage is rich in oral stories. They have been passed down for many generations for both entertaining and educating people in the tribes. Some are being written down so we can appreciate them. For the last several weeks we have featured Native American female authors including novelists and biographers. In the upcoming weeks we will learn about some indigenous Poets. This week we begin the series with the amazing story of the first Native American Poet Laureate in the United States – Joy Harjo.

 Joy Harjo (Muskogee (Creek), b. 1951) Poet, Educator, Musician

 Joy Harjo was born in Tulsa Oklahoma. She is an enrolled member of the Muskogee Tribe. Her father was a sheet-metal worker from a famous Creek family and her mother, a waitress, was of mixed Cherokee, Irish, and French descent. She was surrounded by artists and musicians. Her mother wrote songs, her grandmother played the saxophone, and her aunt was an artist. Her surname, taken from her grandmother, means “so brave it’s crazy.” Her female relatives encouraged Joy to explore her creative side. She wrote her first poem with she was in eighth grade. She went on the become an author, poet, musician, and Native American activist. She became the first Native American Poet Laureate in the United States. She has written several film scripts, works for television, and released numerous albums of music. She has been called “One of America’s foremost Native voices”

Joy’s formal education included attendance at the Institute of American Indian Arts in New Mexico (theatre and painting), The University of New Mexico (BA degree), and The University of Iowa (MFA degree in 1976). She studied filmmaking at the Anthropology Film Center and taught at universities in New Mexico, Arizona, and California. She was a full professor at the University of New Mexico (1991-1995) and has taught at the University of California at Los Angeles. She has taught creative writing at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana and at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. She is a founding board member of the Native Arts and cultures Foundation.

When our culture had been seeking for Native Americans speakers and singers to articulate their dreams, customs, and beliefs, Joy drew on First Nation storytelling and histories in answer to that appeal. Joy tells her stories through her poems and songs. In 2005, Joy was named Writer of the Year for Film Scripts by the Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers for A Thousand Roads, submitted to the National Museum of the American Indian.

Her poetry has won many awards including:

Lifetime Achievement Award – Native Writers Circle of the Americas
Josephine Miles Poetry Award
Wallace Stevens Award, Academy of American Poets
William Carlos Williams Award – Poetry Society of America
American Indian Distinguished Achievement in the Art Award
Writer of the Year – Poetry (2003-2004 for How We Became Human: New and Selected Poems 1975-2001)
Ruth Lily Poetry Prize – 2017

A gifted musician and singer, Joy entertains people with her saxophone combining tribal music with rock and jazz. She performed for many years with her band, Poetic Justice, and she has toured with her band, Arrow Dynamics. She has released four albums including Red Dreams, A Trail Beyond Tears (2010). She won a Native American Music Award for Best Female Artist of the Year in 2009. She has written musicals and plays, including We Were There When Jazz Was Invented. She has also written an acclaimed memoir (Crazy Brave), essay collections, and children’s books.

Joy has many published works including:

“River Styx: Ploughshares; Massachusetts Review” – Magazine article
Pushcart Prize Poetry Anthologies XIII and XV
In Mad Love and War – American book award, Delmore Schwartz Memorial Award
The Woman Who Fell from the Sky – Oklahoma Book Award
She Had Some Horses (1983)
The Last Song (1975)

Perhaps her most famous poem is She Had Some Horses. In this poem Joy expresses the feelings within a woman as “horses” that struggle to reconcile contradictory personal feelings and experiences. Joy was seeking a feeling of oneness or unity within her being. Joy’s poetry combines the spiritual with the mundane, realism with surrealism, and historical with modern.

Joy’s memoir, Crazy Brave, won the American Book Award and the 2013 PEN Center USA award for creative nonfiction. In this work she talks about the colonization of the Indians and the consequences. She paints a “before and after” picture of life when the white colonists came.

Who are we before and after the encounter” of colonization, Harjo asked. “And how do we imagine ourselves with an integrity and freshness outside the sludge and despair of destruction? I am seven generations from Monahwee, who, with the rest of the Red Stick contingent, fought Andrew Jackson at The Battle of Horseshoe Bend in what is now known as Alabama. Our tribe was removed unlawfully from our homelands. Seven generations can live under one roof. That sense of time brings history close, within breathing distance. I call it ancestor time. Everything is a living being, even time, even words.

In this excerpt from Joy’s book, we see a bit of American history of treatment of the tribal people. It was tragic. The situation for Native Americans is complicated. Some wish to remain on tribal land. Many others seek education and a life outside of their tribe. It is a difficult choice for them. I believe we should respect and help our neighbors. I also am thankful that things are changing for Native Americans. Many more, like Joy Harjo, are having a voice. It is good to remember the past, so we do not make the same mistakes again. We have been making changes. Let’s look to a better future.

To give an update on what has happened to Native American tribes you can read a great article on the History website. I only quoted a few of the facts below to whet your appetite. Please go and read the whole article. Note the reference to the Indians of the Creek tribe in Alabama. These were Joy Harjo’s ancestors.

9 Facts About Native American Tribes: There are more than nine million Native Americans living in the United States, representing hundreds of tribal nations with diverse languages, cultures and traditions.

by Michelle Cyca, July 12, 2023. Go To:  https://www.history.com/news/native-american-tribes-facts

• Native Americans have lived on our continent from Alaska to the gulf Coast of Florida for many centuries. They number more than nine million today. There are hundreds of tribal nations with many diverse languages, cultures, and traditions.
• Prior to colonization, the Native Americans lived across the United States. In 1830 President Andrew Jackson signed the “Indian Removal Act.” He did this in response to the white settlers’ desire to grow cotton in the South. This land belonged to the Choctaw, Cherokee, Creek, and other tribes. The result of this act was the removal of the tribal people from Alabama, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and Tennessee. They were sent to “Indian territory” located in what is now Oklahoma. Thousands died during these forced migrations.
• Today there are around 326 tribal land areas in the United States. There are 574 federally recognized tribes, so some do not own their land. Those who own land comprise about 2.6 percent of their original ownership before colonization. Most were forced out by the government.
• A 2014 study by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development found that 68% of Native Americans and Alaskan Natives live on or near their homelands. Of the 574 recognized tribes, 229 are found in Alaska. California has the second-highest number of recognized tribes with 109. California has the highest Native American population of any state.
• The federally recognized tribes have a government-to-government relationship with the United States just like other sovereign nations. The tribes that do not have the recognition are ineligible for government programs and support. As of 2020, 66 tribes had received recognition in 13 states of their historical and contemporary existence. State recognition does not always entitle tribes to state or federal benefits.

Joy helps us to see from a Native American perspective the history of her people. You can find all her above-mentioned works online. You can also find many YouTube videos of Joy playing her saxophone and teaching.