Joy Harjo | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | Joy Harjo May 9, 1951 Tulsa, Oklahoma, U.S. |
| Pen name | Joy Harjo-Sapulpa |
| Occupation | Author, poet, performer, educator, United States Poet Laureate |
| Nationality | Muscogee Nation, American |
| Education | University of New Mexico (BA) University of Iowa (MFA) |
| Genre | Poetry, non-fiction, fiction |
| Literary movement | Native American Renaissance |
| United States Poet Laureate | |
| In office 2019–2022 | |
| Preceded by | Tracy K. Smith |
| Succeeded by | Ada Limón |
Joy Harjo (/ˈhɑːrdʒoʊ/ HAR-joh; born May 9, 1951) is an American poet, musician, playwright, and author. She served as the 23rd United States Poet Laureate, the first Native American to hold that honor. She was also only the second Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to have served three terms (after Robert Pinsky). Harjo is a citizen of the Muscogee Nation (Este Mvskokvlke) and belongs to Oce Vpofv (Hickory Ground).[1] She is an important figure in the second wave of the literary Native American Renaissance of the late 20th century. She studied at the Institute of American Indian Arts, completed her undergraduate degree at University of New Mexico in 1976, and earned an MFA degree at the University of Iowa in its creative writing program.
In addition to writing books and other publications, Harjo has taught in numerous United States universities, performed internationally at poetry readings and music events, and released seven albums of her original music. Harjo is the author of ten books of poetry, and three children's books, The Good Luck Cat, For a Girl Becoming, and most recently, Remember (2023). Her books include Weaving Sundown in a Scarlet Light (2022), Catching the Light (2022), Poet Warrior (2021), An American Sunrise (2019), Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings (2015), Crazy Brave (2012), and How We Became Human: New and Selected Poems 1975–2002 (2004), among others.
She is the recipient of the 2024 Frost Medal from the Poetry Society of America, the 2023 Bollingen Prize for American Poetry, the 2023 Harper Lee Award, the 2023 Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Book Critics Circle, the 2022 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Americans for the Arts, a 2022 Leadership Award from the Academy of American Poets, a 2019 Jackson Prize from Poets & Writers, the 2017 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, the Academy of American Poets Wallace Stevens Award, two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a Tulsa Artist Fellowship, among other honors.
In 2019, she was elected a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and has since been inducted into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame, the National Women's Hall of Fame, and the Native American Hall of Fame. She has also been designated as the 14th Oklahoma Cultural Treasure at the 44th Oklahoma Governor's Arts Awards. Harjo founded For Girls Becoming, an art mentorship program for young Mvskoke women and served as a Founding Board Member and Chair of the Native Arts & Cultures Foundation.[2]
Her signature project as U.S. Poet Laureate was called Living Nations, Living Words: A Map of First Peoples Poetry; it focused on "mapping the U.S. with Native Nations poets and poems".[3]
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