Joy Harjo is a writer, singer, and storyteller. Born and raised in the Muscogee Creek Nation, her words tell the story of the land and sky, and everything that lives above, below, and in between. She was named the United States Poet Laureate in 2019, the highest national honor for poets. Her words are striking, filled with a power that will shake your heart. Below are some selections from her work.
“I do not know your language through I hear the breaking of waves
through the vowels.”
Protocol from A Map to the Next World: Poems and Tales, 2000
“Our children put down their guns when we did to imagine with us.
We imagined the shining link between the heart and the sun.
We imagined tables of food for everyone.
We imagined the songs.
The imagination conversely illumines us, speaks with us, sings with
us, drums with us, loves us.”
A Postcolonial Tale from The Woman Who Fell From the Sky
“Never is the most powerful word in the English language, or perhaps any language. It is magic. Every time I have made an emphatic pronouncement invoking the word never, whatever follows that I don’t want to happen happens.”
The Power of Never from A Map to the Next World: Poems and Tales, 2000
“look at me
i am not a separate woman
i am the continuance
of blue sky
i am the throat
of the mountains
a night wind
who burns
with every breath
she takes”
Fire from What Moon Drove Me To This?
“And the ground spoke when she was born.
Her mother hears it. In Navajo she answered
as she squatted down against the earth
to give birth. It was now when it happened,
now giving birth to itself again and again
between the legs of women.”
For Alva Benson, And For Those Who Have Learned To Speak from
She Had Some Horses
“A human mind is small when thinking
of small things.
It is large when embracing the maker
of walking, thinking, and flying.”
Emergence from A Map to the Next World: Poems and Tales, 2000