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Joy Harjo: Home

This LibGuide collects resources about the poet and musician Joy Harjo, the 23rd Poet Laureate of the United States.

 

 

We loved our trees and waters

And the creatures and earths and skies

In that beloved place.

Those beings were our companions 

Even as they fed us, cared for us.

If I turn to salt

It will be of petrified tears

From the footsteps of my relatives

As they walked west.

-excerpt from "Exile of Memory," An American Sunrise (Norton, 2019)

Joy Harjo

Photo: Matika Wilbur

23rd Poet Laureate of the United States

 

 

"Joy Harjo is an internationally renowned performer and writer of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation and was named the 23rd Poet Laureate of the United States in 2019. The author of nine books of poetry, several plays and children's books, and a memoir, Crazy Brave, her many honors include the Ruth Lily Prize for Lifetime Achievement from the Poetry Foundation, the Academy of American Poets Wallace Stevens Award, a PEN USA Literary Award, Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Fund Writers’ Award, a Rasmuson US Artist Fellowship, two NEA fellowships, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Harjo is a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and is a founding board member of the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation. She lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where she is a Tulsa Artist Fellow." [Source]

Who appoints the United States poet laureate? How long does the laureate serve? And how much are they paid?

Find out by visiting the Library of Congress' Poet Laureate FAQ page.