Ask Joy Harjo discussion

Joy will be answering questions on July 10, but if you have a question for her, please feel free to ask it now in this thread.

Joy, I love your work so much - you are one of my favorite poets. Which has been harder for you - finding your voice as woman poet, or a Native American poet? Do you identify as a feminist, and if so how do you define feminism? Finally, why do you think the market for poetry and opportunities for poets to get paid for their work are so few and far between?

Thanks for taking the opportunity to solicit questions!

I'm learning that Native American writers grasp of time is circular with the past, future and immediate woven into one - some of your poems seem linear where as others I am not sure - do you write using circular time and if so would you please name a poem and offer a bit of explanation of how you write in circular time.

Real Supergirl wrote: "Joy, I love your work so much - you are one of my favorite poets. Which has been harder for you - finding your voice as woman poet, or a Native American poet? Do you identify as a feminist, and i..."
My voice appears to me to exist outside of any labels, yet the filter is impacted by being of a particular generation, in a specific place in time, and certainly by being born female and indigenous. I have identified and do identify with being a feminist, as long as that definition is about empowerment of all women. True empowerment of anyone empowers the whole of society. As a child in my culture and neighborhood, the roles for women were very circumscribed. Bride dolls were pre-Barbie. I wouldn't own one. I knew I wanted to be an artist. I didn't know how but I knew my grandmother Naomi Harjo painted large oil paintings and played saxophone. I knew it was possible. Yet I saw my mother suffer and let go of her music because she was...a woman with four children. Feminism was a way to voice the struggles of all women in the world, though in the beginning it was primarily a white woman's movement. I did not want my mother, myself or my daughters to be shamed any longer for being female. Not every woman's experience was like this, native or non-native. Others I knew grew up in households and cultures in which they were honored for being themselves....and the market for poetry...and getting paid? In this country poetry lives in the hinderlands of the soul. It's not that way in other places. At Indian boarding school, when most of the students came from oral cultures, everyone loved poetry. The arts of speaking and singing was still close to the heart. Most countries outside of the U.S. still have a place at the center for poetry. Does this help?

Barbara wrote: "I'm learning that Native American writers grasp of time is circular with the past, future and immediate woven into one - some of your poems seem linear where as others I am not sure - do you write ..."
There's really no such thing as a "Native American", we call ourselves by our specific tribal names. I am of the Mvskoke people, a full tribal member. But, it is a catch all term for anyone of indigenous descent. I can't speak for everyone else. I can speak of my own experience with time...and that would take awhile. There are some lines from my play, WINGS OF NIGHT SKY, WINGS OF MORNING LIGHT, when the father is talking to Redbird (when she is a child). He says, Time is a being, like you, like me. No one pays much attention until their sad. Then time stops...or when they're having fun running around in their pajamas and it's time to go to bed, there isn't enough time...Monahwee made friends with time, shared tobacco with time. So when he got on his horse to race his beloved warrior friends he had a little talk with time. Time said get on my back and we'll fly free. So no matter how fast all the others raced, Monahwee and his horse always arrived long before it was possible little Redbird. Those were the best times, said my father." This came from stories told me by my aunt Lois Harjo about how some people in our family and tribe could bend time.
I have had direct experiences with time being in the past, present and future all at once. In my memoir CRAZY BRAVE I attempt to weave the story in a way that hints at this, while keeping it moving in a linear manner.

Joy, Congratulations on Crazy Brave! She Had Some Horses is the one book of poetry that I have returned to again and again as a teenager, young woman, mother, and midwife. I Give You Back in particular has inspired and haunted me and lines bubble up to the surface in moments of reflecting on my own deep and intense fears. I have always imagined this poem written in one moment of revelation - what was your experience of conjuring this work of art? Also, my partner would love to know: what do you perceive as modern culture's largest fallacy in our view of nature and the natural world?

Honey wrote: "Joy, Congratulations on Crazy Brave! She Had Some Horses is the one book of poetry that I have returned to again and again as a teenager, young woman, mother, and midwife. I Give You Back in partic..."
You're a midwife? I always wanted to be a midwife. You'll have to read CRAZY BRAVE to see how I came to write "I Give You Back" or the Fear Poem, to hear what brought the poem to me. It was one of my first poems.
The largest fallacy of the modern culture (or what I call the "overculture") toward nature and the natural world? I'll have to think about that---

Joy, I fell into you quite by accident and have been a fan since She Had Some Horses. Reading and re-reading it over the years never ceases to awaken some new sense, some new awareness within. Am very much looking forward to reading Crazy Brave. My question is, when you write is the audience in your head you or the reader? or is there some in-between compromise that lifts each poem into its space of consciousness?

Joy wrote: "Real Supergirl wrote: "Joy, I love your work so much - you are one of my favorite poets. Which has been harder for you - finding your voice as woman poet, or a Native American poet? Do you identi..."

Oh yes it does help. So much to chew on in your response. Not surprisingly really, there's so much to chew on in your poems as well. Even a poem like "The Real Revolution is Love" which at first read seems to be one of your more straightforward, and narrative, has layers I keep coming back to with later reads. One of my favorite poems by any poet, by the way. You are in company with Naomi Shihab Nye and Marge Piercy as poets I most emulate in my own poetry.

Joy, in your view, who is one of the most morally courageous poets writing today that readers, most likely, have not (yet) heard about?

Joy, I have a couple of different reasons for posting here. First of all, I wanted to let you know that you are the reason I write poetry. As a creative writing student focusing solely on fiction, I'd never given much thought to poetry, until we read She Had Some Horses in my Native American Lit class. I'd never read anything like it, and it struck me in a way so profound that I still reread it regularly now, two years later. By the time I finished my poetry workshop class (the last writing class I took before I graduated) I knew that I wanted to write poetry for the rest of my life.

Aside from letting you know that, I was curious, do you have a set routine for writing? One of the things I struggle with most is writing regularly. It's hard to find the time to write, and when I do, it's even harder to produce anything I feel good about. I know some writers find they write best in the early mornings, or right before they go to sleep, or after exercising, and I was wondering if you had a process like that? In addition, I was also wondering what your take on white people writing "Native American" works is? I'm a small percentage Cherokee, but that's not exactly uncommon, and after taking that literature class I found myself wrestling with the undeniable connection I feel to the subject matter and tone of the genre. I'd love to hear your thoughts, but mostly I wanted to thank you for showing me how beautiful and powerful poetry can truly be.

Michael wrote: "Joy, in your view, who is one of the most morally courageous poets writing today that readers, most likely, have not (yet) heard about?"
That's a good question, Michael. It's the "most" that stalls an answer. I think of the Russian poet Anna Ahkmatova who was repressed by the Stalinist government, Roque Dalton the Salvadorian poet whose poems sing on despite political cruelty, and Claribel Alegria, Nicaraguan whom I had the honor to read poetry with in a coffee farm once in Nicaragua. There are other kinds of bravery. I think of Phyllis Wheatley writing poetry in early colonial America.

William wrote: "Joy, I have a couple of different reasons for posting here. First of all, I wanted to let you know that you are the reason I write poetry. As a creative writing student focusing solely on fiction, ..."
William--about a writing routine...it's important to write consistently. I have found that if I am able to keep a somewhat consistent writing time the work flows more evenly. Sometimes you need a break or another point of view, another entry point that will only come if you run into the right person, situation, earth or sky. I usually write something every morning, before thinking. Thinking gets in the way during the first draft. The first draft, for me, is absolute flow. When I'm traveling...and it starts for me tomorrow as I start the tour for Crazy Brave, then the rhythm gets broken. But I've learned to write on planes, in hotel rooms or airport terminals.

As for your other question...might get to it tomorrow...it's late and I have an early flight-- Thanks for your comments. Joy

Here I am---haven't been able to get on via my computer. Crummy hotel signal...
Questions?

Is this the chat? Or is it elsewhere?

Yes, this is it--I'm in an antiquated downtown LA Hotel--poor Internet signal. Coming to you via iPad.

Hi Joy! I just read your book of poems "In Mad Love and War" last semester for my first college English class, and found it to be like nothing I've ever read (and I read a lot). When you're writing your poetry, how do you separate the spiritual aspects from the realistic ones, if you do at all? If you keep them distinct in your mind or not, what's your rationale?

Thank you for your words, your spirit, and your time.

Very sincerely, Claire Davanzo.

Hmmmmmm Is there a difference between spiritual and realistic? Even the physical, or hard reality is threaded with the material of the spiritual. Each moment flows into the next.We capture the essence in poetry and in other art forms. With CRAZY BRAVE I was very aware of weaving in what might be called "spiritual" aspects: the dreams, visions and other events that might be called "super"natural. They are all natural. I was very careful. There are things I cannot put into words for to do so would denigrate them, dissolve or offend. Does that make sense at all? They had everything to do with the everyday ordinary world.

Joy - this may be more statement than question. Just wanted to say thank you for your words. I've been reading How We Became Human regularly. Your poems are a great lesson in voice and persona - and bringing out emotion. Do you have advice for finding or making stronger ones own narrative voice as a beginning writer?

And, Claire, in my poetry, I have always been aware of how my poetry self does this kind of weaving naturally. It is there in each of my books of poetry, from She Had Some Horses, In Mad Love and War to the coming of age story-poem, For a Girl Becoming. And now...even in the memoir Crazy Brave.
Thanks.

I hadn't realized until the Talk of the Nation interview yesterday how much Crazy Brave is essentially, about finding a voice. It's about finding pieces of a soul, which is also, about restoring voice....I think I remember saying, you can't go looking for it. It's like looking for love. You'll never find it especially if you go on a mission, with all kinds of sonar equipment, perfect lines, and so on. You can scare it away. Your voice is right there, right there. The problem can be, as we all know, getting it from there to here. We find it by listening. What poems and poets haunt you? Listen to them. Read them. I've encountered many young beginning writers who believe that to read or listen to poetry will get in the way of their own voice. NOT TRUE! Your own voice will be so inspired it will want to come out and join in.