In recognition of National Native American Heritage Month, we would like to highlight the life and work of the 23rd and current Poet Laureate, Joy Harjo. A prolific poet, musician, teacher, and activist, Harjo is also the first Native American to serve as Poet Laureate. Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden first appointed Joy Harjo as the 23rd Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress on June 19, 2019. Harjo was reappointed to a second term on April 30, 2020, and to a rare third term on November 19, 2021. She is only the second Poet Laureate to be appointed to a third term.
“I feel strongly that I have a responsibility to all the sources that I am: to all past and future ancestors, to my home country, to all places that I touch down on and that are myself, to all voices, all women, all of my tribe, all people, all earth, and beyond that to all beginnings and endings.”
- Joy Harjo
Harjo is a Muscogee (Creek) Nation citizen and was born in what is known as Tulsa, Oklahoma, on May 9, 1951 – making her the first Poet Laureate from Oklahoma. Harjo attended high school at the Institute of Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico, which at the time of her attendance was stewarded by the Bureau of Indian Affairs as an experimental effort that brought together Native students from across the country to study the arts. There, Harjo experienced the beginnings of the Native American arts and culture renaissance that marked the 1970s. Harjo married and had her first child in 1969 as a teenager, and her second in 1972; she raised her two children as a single mother while completing her studies. She began writing poetry as an undergraduate and member of the University of New Mexico’s Native student organization, the Kiva Club. She went on to earn her Master of Fine Arts from the University of Iowa Writer’s Workshop in 1978, and then returned to her alma mater, the Institute of Indian Arts, to teach, before moving on to other teaching positions. In her decades-long career, Harjo has taught poetry at universities and writing programs across the country while publishing and performing her work on national and international stages.
Harjo’s body of published work includes nine books of poetry, two memoirs, two books for young people, and two anthologies of Native writers and their works. Her contribution to contemporary American literature has been recognized by several prestigious literary awards and honors. In addition to publishing and performing poetry and other literary works, Harjo has produced five award-winning music albums with The Arrow Dynamics Band and previously with Joy Harjo and Poetic Justice, an all-Native band with members who practiced Indian law. She co-founded For Girls Becoming, an arts mentorship program for young Mvskoke women.
“Living Nations, Living Words” is Harjo’s signature project as Poet Laureate – its goal is to “introduce the country to many Native poets who live in these lands.” The project includes an ArcGIS story map and an online poetry collection that includes the work and recorded audio performances of 47 contemporary Native poets. The project is accompanied by a Research Guide for Educators and an Anthology of First Peoples Poetry. You can view a complete list of the Library of Congress’s holdings of Joy Harjo’s works here. Harjo joined Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, a former student of Harjo’s, and Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden in conversation to commemorate National Native American Heritage Month in 2021. Other resources from around the web celebrating National Native American Heritage Month can be found in this previous Ex Libris Juris post.