Catching the light

In this lyrical meditation about the why of writing poetry, Joy Harjo reflects on significant points of illumination, experience, and questioning from her fifty years as a poet. Comprised of intimate vignettes that take us through the author's life journey as a youth in the late 1960s, a single moth...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Harjo, Joy (Author)
Format: Books Print Book
Language:English
Published: New Haven : Yale University Press, [2022]
Series:Why I write series.
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Summary:In this lyrical meditation about the why of writing poetry, Joy Harjo reflects on significant points of illumination, experience, and questioning from her fifty years as a poet. Comprised of intimate vignettes that take us through the author's life journey as a youth in the late 1960s, a single mother, and a champion of Native nations, this book offers a fresh understanding of how poetry functions as an expression of purpose, spirit, community, and memory. Harjo insists the most meaningful poetry is birthed through cracks in history from what is broken and unseen. At the crossroads of this brokenness, she calls us to watch and listen for the songs of justice for all those America has denied. This is an homage to the power of words to defy erasure--to inscribe the story, again and again, of who we have been, who we are, and who we can be.
Item Description:The 2021 Windham-Campbell Lecture
Physical Description:122 pages ; 18 cm.
ISBN:9780300257038
0300257031
Author Notes:Joy Harjo is an internationally renowned performer and writer of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation and the twenty-third Poet Laureate of the United States. Her books include Poet Warrior and An American Sunrise . She is the recipient of a 2022 National Humanities Medal, presented by President Biden. Her numerous other awards include the Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award of the National Book Critics Circle; the 2022 Academy of American Poets Leadership Award; and the 2023 Bollingen Prize for American Poetry, awarded by the Yale University Library.