JOY HARJO, born in 1951 in Tulsa, Oklahoma, is a member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation. In June 2019, the poet, musician, playwright, and author was the first Native American to be named United States Poet Laureate.
After attending high school at the Institute of American Indian Arts, Harjo earned her BA at the University of New Mexico in 1976 where she began writing poetry as a member of the university’s Native student organization. She completed her MFA at the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop in 1978.
While performing music and poetry nationally and internationally, Harjo has taught English, Creative Writing, and American Indian Studies at the University of California-Los Angeles, University of New Mexico, University of Arizona, Arizona State University, University of Illinois, University of Colorado, University of Hawai'i, Institute of American Indian Arts, and University of Tennessee.
Harjo is the author of ten books of poetry which include:
• Weaving Sundown in a Scarlet Light: Fifty Poems for Fifty Years (2022)
• An American Sunrise (2019), winner of the 2020 Oklahoma Book Award
• Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings (2015), shortlisted for the Griffin Prize and named Notable Book of the Year by the American Library Association, and
• In Mad Love and War (1990), winner of an American Book Award and the Delmore Schwartz Memorial Award.
Her 2013 memoir, Crazy Brave, was awarded the PEN USA Literary Award in Creative Non-Fiction and the American Book Award.
She is Executive Editor of the 2020 anthology When the Light of the World was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through: A Norton Anthology of Native Nations Poetry and the Editor of Living Nations, Living Words: An Anthology of First Peoples Poetry.
As a critically acclaimed poet, Harjo has received several honors and awards. These include:
• Yale’s 2023 Bollingen Prize for American Poetry
• Lifetime Achievement Award from Americans for the Arts (2022)
• United States Poet Laureate 2019-2022
• Ruth Lilly Prize for Lifetime Achievement from the Poetry Foundation (2017)
• Wallace Stevens Award from the Academy of American Poets (2015) • American Indian Distinguished Achievement in the Arts Award, and
• Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native Writers' Circle of Americas (1995).
Harjo is a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and is a founding board member and Chair of the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation. She has recently been inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the American Philosophical Society, the National Native American Hall of Fame, and the National Woman’s Hall of Fame.
She lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where she is the inaugural Artist-in-Residence of the Bob Dylan Center.
Photo Credit: Shawn Miller
Source: Poet's Website at www.joyharjo.com
