“Imagining the spirit of poetry is like imagining the shape and size of a presentiment. It is a kind of awakening light; it is the full-grown spirit of an ancestor who has accompanied me from the beginning, or a bear or a hummingbird. It is a hundred horses galloping across a landscape in a soft mist, or a woman undressing in the glow of a fire before her beloved. It is none of these. It transcends all that is conceivable.”
Joy Harjo, Crazy Brave
American poet and jazz musician Joy Harjo was born on May 9, 1951, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She is a member of the Muscogee/Creek Nation, which once inhabited a vast area of what are now the states of Alabama and Georgia. Along with the Cherokee, Seminole, Chickasaw, and Choctaw, the Muskogee were forcibly relocated to an Indian reservation in Oklahoma between 1830 and 1850. Harjo describes this traumatic historical experience, known to historians as the Trail of Tears, in detail in her seminal collection of poetry. An American Sunrise (W.W. Norton, 2019).
She entered the literary world as one of the key figures of the second wave of the so-called Native American Renaissance, a literary and (in a broader sense) artistic movement of the second half of the 20th century, whose symbolic beginning is considered to be the publication of the groundbreaking novel by N. Scott Momadaye. House of Dawn (1968, Czech 2001). The initial impulse to write poetry was given to the young Harjo by her mother, who wrote song lyrics at the kitchen table on an Underwood typewriter, “the most wonderful thing in the house.” Since then, Harjo has published countless successful and award-winning poetry collections, several plays, a wonderful children’s book The Good Luck Cat (with illustrator and artist Paul Lee) and two extraordinary memoirs (Crazy Brave and Poet Warrior), in which she describes her thorny path to poetry and music, the central values of her life. In addition, she has recorded one group and seven solo jazz albums (Harjo is an excellent player of the saxophone, Indian flute and piano) and has recently recorded a teaching series of “poetic thinking” for the e-learning platform MasterClass.
Harjo is a tireless advocate and promoter of Indigenous cultures and poetry, active on social media. She has co-authored a collection with poet Gloria Bird (Spokane) Reinventing the Enemy's Language: Contemporary Native Women's Writings of North America (WW Norton, 1998) focused on the work of Native American women authors and also an extensive anthology When the Light of the World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through (WW Norton, 2020), which offers a multigenerational cross-section of Native American poetry from across the United States. In 2019, she was named United States Poet Laureate by the Library of Congress (as the first poet of Native descent), a sort of official representative of American poetry whose task is to spread awareness of poetry across American society. As part of her first term (of three total) she initiated the creation of an interactive online maps indigenous poetry Living Nations, Living Words and an accompanying anthology of the same name (WW Norton/Library of Congress, 2021). This exceptional project aims to redefine the geography of the North American continent through the poetry of 47 selected Native American poets, to be a living testament to their work and also an expression of their relationship to a specific place – their roots in American soil. “Native American literature defines America. It is not exotic. Its concerns are specific, if often universal,” notes Harjo.
Harjo writes jazzy, relaxed, electrifying poetry that, without embellishment, reflects the tragic experiences of the original North American people, the position of indigenous women in contemporary American society, institutional violence and broader issues of social and racial justice, as well as the intimate relationship of indigenous ethnic groups to the land, ancestors, powerful spiritual forces that surround us every day, guide us, and lead us astray. Her poems often refer to traditional Indian song forms and mythological narratives – not only formally, but also anchored in the belief that words are imbued with magical power, and can – if spoken correctly and at the right time – change the world, bring healing. Harjo emphasizes the musicality of her poetry during live performances, when she sings the poems in a unique way; she has also directly set a number of her poems (including some translated here). As she herself says: “Music and poetry entered the world like a dance”, it is therefore impossible to separate one from the other; Music and poetry are of the same boiling, rhythmically pulsating blood.
The poems mentioned were selected and translated by Luděk Čertík.
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This morning I pray for my enemies And who do I call my enemy? An enemy must be worthy of enmity. I turn in the direction of the sun and walk on. It is the heart that asks, not my angry mind. The heart is the sun's lesser nephew. It is all-seeing and all-knowing. It hears the creak and the blessing at the same time. The entrance to the mind should be through the heart only. An enemy who passes through it risks changing into a friend. (Musical version here.)
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Talking tree I had a beautiful dream that I was dancing with a tree. Sandra Cisneros Certain things on this earth are unspeakable: The family tree of the grieving— A timid breeze weaving through the leaves after bloodshed, Or the smell of coffee and no one in sight— Some people claim that trees lack consciousness, But that's just not poetry— And similarly they don't hear the song of trees nourished by the Wind, Or the music of water— Or the agonizing cries of the broken and abandoned— Now I am a woman, longing to be a tree, Planted in the dark damp soil Between dawn and dusk— I can't bear to walk across worlds— I carry within me a desire that cannot be borne in the captivity of darkness— What should I do with all this heartache? The deepest-rooted dream of a tree is to move away If only a little from its place at the doorstep— To the bank of the river of life and drink there— I have heard the trees talking to each other long after sunset: Imagine what it would be like to dance close together In this land of knowledge and water... To drink deeply what cannot be drunk.
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I will bring you back.
I release you, my beautiful and terrible fear. I release you. You were my beloved and hated twin, but I no longer recognize myself in you. I release you with all the pain I would have felt if my children had died. You are no longer of my blood. I return you to the soldiers who burned my house, beheaded my children, strangled and raped my brothers and sisters. I return you to those who stole food from our plates when we were starving. I release you, fear, for you hold these scenes before me and I was born with eyes that will never close. I release you I release you I release you I release you I am not afraid to be angry. I am not afraid to be happy. I am not afraid to be black. I am not afraid to be white. I am not afraid to be hungry. I am not afraid to be full. I am not afraid to be hated. I am not afraid to be loved, beloved, fear, beloved. Oh, you strangled me, but I gave you the belt. You threw up my insides, but I gave you the knife. You devoured me, but I laid myself on your spit. I take back my self, fear. You are no longer a shadow at my heels. I will no longer hold you in my hands. You cannot live in my eyes, in my ears, in my voice, in my belly or in my heart in my heart in my heart in my heart. Just come closer, fear. I am alive and you are so afraid of losing your life. (Poem by the author) here.)
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Remember
Remember the sky under which you were born, know the story of each individual star. Remember the moon and know who it is. Remember the birth of the sun at dawn, that is the most solid point in time. Remember the dusk and the surrender of the night. Remember your own birth, how your mother strained her strength to imprint shape and breath on you. You are a testimony to her life and the life of her mother and the mother before her. Remember your father. He is your life too. Remember the earth whose skin you are: red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth, brown earth, we are the earth. Remember the plants, the trees, the lives of animals, they all have their tribes, their families, their histories. Speak to them, listen to them. They are living poems. Remember the wind. Remember its voice. The wind knows the origin of the universe. Remember that you are all people and all people are you. Remember that you are this universe and this universe is you. Remember that everything is movement, is growth, is you. Remember that language comes from that. Remember the dance that language is, that life is. Remember.
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What will last
The sun creates a new day. Tiny green shoots sprout from the earth. Birds sing the sky to their place. I don't want to be anywhere else but here. I lean into the rhythm of your heart, to see where it will take us. We trot into the warm south wind. I link my legs with yours, and together we ride toward the ancient campsites of our kin. Where have you been? they ask. And what took you so long? In the nights after feasting, singing, and dancing, we lie together under the stars. We know we are part of a mystery. It is unspeakable. It is eternal. It will endure.
