Nobody embodies the very essence of American Indian poetry as well as Joy Harjo.
Originally from Oklahoma and currently living in Hawaii, Harjo lights up Albuquerque whenever she stops by to visit.
This time she came to Bookworks Monday to read from her new collection, How We Became Human: New and Selected Poems from W.W. Norton & Co., published this year.
Harjo is a deliciously witty and enigmatic poet whose reputation has afforded her something few living poets can claim - fame. This American Indian poet and former UNM instructor has been anthologized and worshipped since her 1983 poetry collection She Had Some Horses.
Through it all, Harjo has remained down to earth and in-tune with the world around her. Her reading exemplified this, weaving her family in throughout the reading. Her daughter and granddaughter, who live in Albuquerque, were also there to support this renowned poet.
She dedicated the poem "Map To the Next World" to her granddaughter, saying that when a child is born all the stories around at the time go into its formation. She said her granddaughter came into this world "with a lot of gifts."
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Mixing music in with her poetry, Harjo shows a love for music and was in the band Poetic Justice playing the saxophone. Harjo said during her reading that both music and poetry "come out of the same kind of place."
Harjo's lyrical poetry has touched the hearts of many people all over the country, but none more so than New Mexicans. Although not originally a New Mexico native, Harjo's verses contain the beauty, wonder and gritty reality that make up this state that sometimes feels as if it has no borders. The different cultures mix and blend together in a painting that is unique from all other states. Harjo's poetry is the heart of all that is New Mexican.
As the packed bookstore indicated, she has the ability to use American Indian heritage and culture and weave it into everyday life - letting her poems call to more than just people of color.
After all, a true poem touches everyone in some way, whether it was in the way the author intended, or not.
Her description of the world's "kitchen table," which seguewayed into the poem "Perhaps the World Ends Here," is a stunning tribute to the everyday magic called up from inside us all. She said that at that kitchen table, the roots of war and peace could be traced.
"It all begins there in that very small place," Harjo said.
Harjo's works include A Map to the Next World: Poems; The Woman Who Fell From the Sky, which received the Oklahoma Book Arts Award; In Mad Love and War, which received an American Book Award and the Delmore Schwartz Memorial Award; and What Moon Drove Me to This?
She also has received the American Indian Distinguished Achievement in the Arts Award, the Josephine Miles Poetry Award, the Mountains and Plains Booksellers Award, the William Carlos Williams Award. She currently teaches at the University of California at Los Angeles.
Harjo is a storyteller, a poet, a musician and a performer whose poems will forever remain a part of American culture.
