Product Description
Over a quarter-century's work from the 2003 winner of the Arrell Gibson Award for Lifetime Achievement.

This collection gathers poems from throughout Joy Harjo's twenty-eight-year career, beginning in 1973 in the age marked by the takeover at Wounded Knee and the rejuvenation of indigenous cultures in the world through poetry and music. How We Became Human explores its title question in poems of sustaining grace. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Intense
This collect of Native American poetry is excellent.Joy Harjo relates her experience in a way that is accessable and meaningful.Mrs. Harjo is a poet that needs to be read and read again to explore her depth.We discussed several of her poems in a Great Books book club.

A hestitant five stars for an excellent poet
I have followed Harjo's poetry (and recorded music) for many years, ever since I saw her on PBS reading from "She Had Some Horses".This volume contains selections from her available books: "She Had Some Horses", "Secrets from the Center of the World", "In Mad Love and War", "The Woman Who Fell from the Sky" and "A Map to the Next World".As is frequently the case, the selections for this book are not precisely the poems I would have chosen.It does include the most powerful poems, for example "She Had Some Horses" with it's pounding litany rhythms, "Letter from the End of the Twentieth Century" which is the title track of her cd, "The Creation Story" with its exquisite line "I never had the words / to carry a friend from her death / to the stars / correctly."Somewhat to my surprise, the poems from Secrets from the Center of the World which fit the photographs so precisely in their original context, also succeed as poetry only in this volume (although I'd still recommend the original).

New to me in this volume are the poems from her early chapbooks "The Last Song" and "What Moon Drove Me to This?" as well as new poems from 1999-2001.The chapbook poems are interesting as the beginning of Harjo's development as a poet as well as being interesting poems in their own right .."Four Horse Songs" and "I Am a Dangerous Woman" stand out.In the new material, "Morning Prayers" has memorable lines "the nothingness / is vast and stunning, / brims with details ..." as does "Faith" with "I might miss / The feet of god / Disguised as trees."

Harjo's poetry is strongly political - a Native peoples voice angry at the European invaders/immigrants.More importantly, her voice is one seeking a way to live well in contemporary society where living well requires memory of a time we lived with greater respect for our environment, greater responsibility for our network of relatives.

I'm speechless
It is profound, inspiring experience to read this collection.These writings are courageous and life-affirming. ... Read more

Product Description
A new edition of the beloved volume byJoy Harjo,one of our foremostNative American poets.First published in 1983 and now considered a classic, She Had SomeHorses is a powerful exploration of womanhood's most intimate moments. Joy Harjo's poems speak of women's despair, of their imprisonment and ruin at thehands of men and society, but also oftheirawakenings, power,and love. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A reissue of a classic anthology of poetry
A reissue of a classic anthology of poetry, "She Had Some Horses" is a fine work from experienced poet and woman of the world Joy Harjo. Focusing on the subject of womanhood and the woman's place in society, "She Had Some Horses" is an enjoyable work of poetry, perfect for feminist reads. "Connection": A hawk touches down/the humming earth before Miami,/Oklahoma./You Old Shawnee, I think/of your rugged ways/the slick-floored bars and whiskey/sour nights when the softer heart/comes part./The Spokane you roam isn't City of the Angels/but another kind of wilderness./You speed in a Ford truck and it's five/in the morning, the suns and dogs/only ones up/and you go home to red earth/when you see a hawk/crossing wires/touching down.
... Read more

Product Description
Sacred and secular poems of the Creek Tribe. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

A collection that grabs you, haunts you, and begs you to return
This is my favorite Joy Harjo collection--one that has a permanent place on my table (no bookshelf for this treasure) and one that I frequently gift to others. These poems reach deep into the heart to connect with spirit and all the beauty, despair, struggle, and triumph of the human experience.

A few Amazon reviewers found some of the imagery inaccessible and some thought it "depressing." As an Indigenous woman, I experienced the opposite as I felt Harjo had been peeking through my blinds. In fact, the cultural and traditional metaphor invoked in these poems make them more accessible and more relevant for me as an American Indian woman living on occupied land in urban America. While there is dark reality in my experience as an Indigenous woman, there is also incredible joy, and much resilience gifted to me by my mother and hers as inheritors of a world not of our making. Harjo speaks to all of these. Undoubtedly, the culturally unfamiliar will find these poems more accessible with successive reading. Perhaps an inkling of the Indigenous experience will be the greatest value. Joy Harjo's poetry is inclusive of the spiritual, political, socio-economic, emotional, cultural, historical, and traditional inheritance that is ours.

The book's division into two sections, "In Wars" and "Mad Love," made little sense as each of these poems speaks to both mad love and war. As in life, the polarities and everything between are inseparable as in "Nine Below," or "Heartshed," or "The Bloodletting," or "Unmailed Letter."

Two of my favorites are "City of Fire" and "Original Memory," the latter lamenting and crediting doubt as a repeated manifestation in the human experience with Rabbit as creator (as I read it, anyway), and ending "We sip wine, do a hit of courage, each of us imagining another spin of the wheel, and take up our horns again. Rabbit, who invented the saxophone and who must have invented our imaginary lovers, laughs through millennia. And who are we to make sense of this slit of impossible time?" As a poet, I was stunned to discover metaphor similar to my own in these two selections. I have found the same to be true with Sherman Alexie. I can only assume that it is shared sorrow and something less than triumph, perhaps our will, as Indigenous people that accounts for this.

In Mad Love and War is a powerful collection of poetry that grabs you, haunts you, and begs you to return.

Poetry "with a revolutionary fire"
"In Mad Love and War" is a collection of poetry by Joy Harjo. According to the author bio at the end of the book, Harjo is a member of the Creek (Muscogee) Native American nation, and grew up in Oklahoma and New Mexico. Much of this book reflects this heritage: "We were a stolen people in a stolen land" (from "Autobiography").

"In Mad Love" contains many cultural and historical allusions embedded in a complex web of surreal imagery and autobiographical-sounding fragments. Harjo seems to be trying to transcend both linguistic and cultural barriers; she notes that "All poets / understand the final uselessness of words" ("Bird"). She does not only focus on the Native American experience; she also has a number of African-American cultural references. She takes us, among other places, to a prison riot in West Virginia and a political discussion in Nicaragua.

Although I found some of the book opaque when I first read it, I found "In Mad Love" to be very rewarding on second and third readings. Harjo's language is often quite startling, and achingly beautiful. Much of the book seeks to find a link between the contemporary urban experience and the world of myth and nature. Throughout the book are many references to animals: the trickster Rabbit, "iridescent dragonflies," "a / turtle's nose above water," etc.

Harjo writes of flooding the city "with a revolutionary fire" ("City of Fire"), and indeed the book does have a strong political flavor. Her melding of political commitment, intimate passion, myth, and multicultural awareness makes "In Mad Love and War" a demanding and intriguing read.

Truthful and technically excellent
Harjo is an excellent poet - her poetry is always truthful even if the truth is one that we prefer not to face.This book contains a number of prose poems as well as modern verse; it is clear that Harjo writes what is true and allows it to take the form in which it presents itself.

This collection includes poems that explore human relationships, music, death ... universal concerns written about in a way that recognizes and uses the universality while selecting the images from her Cree background.We are privileged to glimpse another way of relating to the world while being presented with the difficulties of growing up in a minority culture."At five I was designated to string beads in kindergarten.At seven I skew how to play chicken and win.And at fourteen I was drinking."

But her command of the language amkes even the starkest reality beautiful: "I am fragile, a piece of pottery smoked from fire / made of dung, /the design drawn from nightmares.I am an arrow, painted / with lighning ...

Harjo is one of the best contemporary poets.Try any of her books and you'll see a poet, a musician, a painter all sharing their vision with you.

Harjo's "language of lizards and stones."
Joy Harjo is reason enough to read poetry.Although IN MAD LOVE AND WAR is not one of my favorite Harjo collections, it is worth reading. In "For Anna Mae Pictor Aquash," Harjo writes, "Beneath a sky blurred with mist and wind,/ I am amazed as I watch the violet/ heads of crocuses erupt from the stiff earth/ after dying for a season,/ as I have watched my own dark head/ appear each morning after entering/ the next world/ to come back to this one,/amazed" (p. 17).In this book, Harjo writes poetry in "a language of lizards and stones" (p. 9), which is not always easy to understand.In fact, for me, many of the 44 poems here are impenetrable.Still, there are plenty of rewarding moments along the way, e.g., finding grace "with coffee and pancakes in a truck stop along Highway 80" (I), "hearing songs in pine trees" (p. 5), and "looking at the stars in this strange city, frozen in the back of the sky, the only promises that ever make sense" (p. 5), making this a book of poetry worth
exploring.

G. Merritt

Emotionally Insightful and Engaging
Although many of the poems in this book are difficult and dense, thewriting and ideas are so engaging that the reading is worth the effort. Native American themes run throughout the book, as well as how languageprohibits/encourages communication.The book is separated into two parts,"The Wars" and "Mad Love."The poems of "TheWars" are at times very depressing, especially "StrangeFruit," Harjo's version of a Lewis Allan song, and "For Anna MaePictou Aquash...", but as such are valuable insights into cultural andpersonal conflicts.In "Mad Love," the poems are much lessconcrete, and sometimes difficult to understand.The reward comes in thediscovery of personal meaning.Personal favorites include "Fury ofRain," "Unmailed Letter," and "Blue Elliptic."Iloved this poetry book, and continue to go back to it time and time againfor beautiful quotes and inspiration. ... Read more

Product Description
“Always within you is that day your spirit came to us.

When rains came in from the Pacific to bless.

Clouds peered over the mountains

in response to the singing of medicine plants,

who danced back and forth in shawls of mist.”

Transformative moments in the cycle of life are a time for acknowledgment, a chance to guide a child’s path in a positive and loving direction.

Swirling images laden with both myth and personal meaning illustrate this unique, poetic tale of the joys and lessons of a girl’s journey through birth, youth, and finally adulthood. Within these colorful pages, family and community come together in celebration of her arrival, offering praise, love, and advice to help carry her forward through the many milestones to come, and reminding her always of how deeply she is cherished. It is a reminder, too, of our abiding connections to the natural world, and the cyclical nature of life as a whole.

With its rich, symbolic artwork and captivating language, For a Girl Becoming is the perfect gift to recognize a birth, graduation, or any other significant moment in a young woman’s life. Not only for children, this lively and touching story speaks to that part in each of us who still stands at the door of becoming.

... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A book of beautiful, sensitive poetry and song celebrating a young girl's coming of age
"For a Girl Becoming" is a book of beautiful, sensitive poetry and song celebrating a young girl's coming of age. Created by acclaimed Mvskoke/Creek poet, writer, and musician, Joy Harjo, "For a Girl Becoming is Volume 66 of Suntracks, an American Indian Literary Series. "For a Girl Becoming" is a beautiful experience waiting to be treasured by its lucky recipient, appropriate for celebrations of such joyous transitions as birth, graduation, or any other significant turning point in a young woman's life. "For a Girl Becoming" is sensitively illustrated with earth and pastel tones by Mercedes McDonald. A partial quotation from the inspiring text follows: "Now breathe./And when you breathe, remember the source of the gift of all breathing./When you walk, remember the source of the gift of all walking./And when you run, remember the source of the gift of all running./And when you laugh, remember the source of the gift of all laughter./And when you cry, remember the source of the gift of all tears./And when you dream, remember the source of the gift of all dreaming./And when your heart is broken, remember the source of the gift of all breaking./And when your heart is put back together, remember the source of all putting back together." ... Read more

Product Description
Joy Harjo, one of this country's foremost Native American voices, combines elements of storytelling, prayer, and song, informed by her interest in jazz and by her North American tribal background, in this, her fourth volume of poetry.She draws from the Native Americantradition of praising the land and the spirit,the realities of American culture, and theconcept of feminine individuality.Amazon.com Review
Along with N. Scott Momaday, John Trudell, andvery few others, Joy Harjo is an essential Native American literary voice.She counts among her devoted readers Marge Piercy, Adrienne Rich, and Sandra Cisneros; her writing is infused with a generosity of spirit that accounts for much of her appeal. Dancing children, the attempt to heal a broken life,rising moons, and blue horses turning into streaks of lightning are the images Harjo uses to spin her yarns, and her words are spellbinding. Her talent is manifest in "A Postcolonial Tale": "Every day is a reenactment of the creation story. We emerge from dense unspeakable material, through the shimmering power of dreaming stuff."And in "Wolf Warrior": "A white butterfly speckled with pollen joined me in my prayers yesterday as I thought of you in Washington." There is a lot of magic and a lot of hope woven through the dark backdrop of the poems in The Woman Who Fell from the Sky. Harjo is a treasure. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

deep and poignant
I found this book in a thrift store, of all places, several years ago.This has become one of my all-time favorite books of women's poetry.The truths that Joy Harjo puts forth through her use of language is so telling and pierces one like arrows.So good and highly recommended.

Poet as truth-teller
In this book, Harjo herself identifies poet with truth-teller; truth-teller is an accurate description of her work, especially in this volume.This volume contains several of the more political pieces on her album (with Poetic Justice) - the boarding schools, the unkept promises, the discrimination.Several of the piece blur the line between poetry and prose but read aloud a clearly poetry.

To read this poetry is to receive a gift, a grace of seeing another way to view the world - one in which the tree, the butterfly, the water speak and are connected to oneself.She clearly speaks from experience, from truth - not as some who tell such stories of connected for personal gain but as one to whom this telling describes her world.But in connectedness she shows the tears - the alcohol, 'Nam, enforced 'white culture' - the rips in the Native cultures that must be healed for the people to survive.

Excellent poetry - deep in meaning, superb in handling of language and image.

Making the connection with Harjo's poetry.
"I have a question for my soul," Joy Harjo writes in this book,"a creature who has little patience with crows--and less with snow.The question grows new leaves with each hard rain yet bends with grief atloss in the cold" (p. 26)After first reading this amazing book ofpoetry in 1996, I've returned to it many times. Something new is revealedwith each reading, and along the way, Harjo has become one of my favoritecontemporary poets.

Harjo writes that she is a poet "charged withspeaking the truth about "the landscape of the late twentiethcentury" (p. 19).Written from a Native American, feminineperspective, her poetry here is filled with images of earth, sky, stars,bones, blood, rain (the "earth is wet with happiness," p. 12),and lightning ("A blue horse turns into a streak of lightning, thenthe sun," p. 48).In each poem, Harjo asks her reader the question: "do you see the connection?" (p. 51).At least for me, Harjo'sconnections are rarely obvious, but the poetic experience offered by herverse is always powerful."It's possible," Harjo observes,"to understand the world from studying a leaf . . . It's also possibleto travel the whole globe and learn nothing" (p. 57).

In her poem,"Witness," she connects walking the streets of Lucca, Italy with"driving the back roads around Albuquerque, the radio on country and asix-pack" (p. 42).

I recommend the breathtaking experience of makingthe connection with Harjo's poetry.

G. Merritt

Lyrical, Moving, Entrancing
I must admit that I usually have a hard time reading poetry (a serious problem for a literature major!), but Joy Harjo's THE WOMAN WHO FELL FROM THE SKY is simply the most moving and eloquent group of poems I have ever read.From beginning to end, I was awed by Harjo's skillful use of language to convey not only impressions and emotions, but levels and varieties of meanings.I was especially moved by the title poem, which recounts a timeless love story -- these characters could be out of myth or they could be your neighbors, but either way the story is lyrical and passionate, the events flowing like eddies in a stream toward a natural conclusion.Most of the poems in the volume have this same motion -- of fated adventures that make one serenely happy that things turn out as they should.For lovers of poetry, stars, water and people, this is one volume of poetry that cannot be passed over ... Read more

Product Description
Some cats are good luck. You pet them and good things happen. Woogie is one of those cats. But as Woogie gets into one mishap after another, everyone starts to worry. Can a good luck cat's good luck run out?

The first children's book from an acclaimed poet whose honors include the American Book Award and the William Carlos Williams Award

Celebrates the special relationship between a young girl and her cat •A modern Native American story from a member of the Muskogee-Creek tribe
... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Distressing book
A cat shut in a car trunk and forgotten, a cat in a clothes dryer, a cat shot at by boys: these are not sweet scenarios to share with children. I found this to be a disturbing book full of careless violence to a living creature. While children's stories do not have to be filled with saccharine sugariness, they also do not need to contain uncaring episodes included for the purpose of telling a loosely constructed "story" detailing 9 ways for a cat to be killed. There are many good books available on children and their relationships with pets; this is not one of them.

A very touching book
My son brought this home from his school library and was extremely touched by this book.He is quite a sensitive child and when it comes to anyone or anything getting hurt he feels it.I initially thought he didn't want the book but I misread his reaction. I thought he was upset and didn't like the book. But, he kept saying "Order it off the internet, daddy".The page where Woogie gets chased by the boys with the BB gun has to be the most heart-wrenching page, next to where he goes missing but eventually shows up.And HOPEFULLY becomes an indoor cat!!From an engine fan, tumble dryer and boys with BB guns poor Woogie uses up his nine lives but this cat has 10!
A great book for natives and the rest of us (like my family).

This book should be a part of every Indian kid's library
As a Native American father of a two-year old and a four-year old, I often struggle to find material that presents being Indian as normal for my kids.Too often, books send the message that Indians are not normal and the things we do and wear are not normal.So I search hard for books that are culturally relevant and well-written.Our family favorite is Joy Harjo's The Good Luck Cat, which just makes Indian kids and Indian practices normal for once without even having to center it, as so many other kids' books with Indian characters do. Indian kids can connect with it in a natural way and Indian parents can feel good about it.Kids of other backgrounds ought to have this book in their collections, too, because they, too, need to understand that being an Indian kid is normal.And Harjo isa great author, so your kid will enjoy the story.

beautiful, simple reading experience with my child
Joy Harjo tells this story in a simply beautiful way.Wrapped in this cover are emotions and experiences that my daughter and I can joyfully follow together.I'm always glad when my child selects this as one of her bedtime stories.

Excellent picture book
This story is a touching tale of pet ownership.The unnamed narrator shares her love for Woogie (the cat) with the reader, and expresses (in both words and pictures) a very real relationship between a child and a pet.

This story is sweet without being saccharine; emotional without being overly sentimental.Harjo's gift for poetry shows in the simple but expressive text ("My dad watched Woogie's seventh life fly by him as she ran after it"), and the warm paintings show the cat's expressions in a very real way. ... Read more

Product Description
With the recently-published The Woman Who Fell from the Sky, Joy Harjo has emerged as one of the most powerful Native American voices of her generation. Over the past two decades, Harjo has refined and perfected a unique poetic voice that speaks her multifaceted experience as Native American, woman and Westerner in twentieth-century society.
The Spiral of Memory gathers the conversations in which Harjo has articulated her singular yet universal perspective on the world and her poetry. She reflects upon the nuances and development of her art, the importance of her origins, the arduous reconstruction of the tribal past, the dramatic confrontation between Native American and Anglo civilizations, the existential and artistic itinerary through present-day America, and other provocative and profoundly human themes.
Joy Harjo is the author of several volumes of poetry. She received awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Before Columbus Foundation, and the Poetry Society of America. She is Professor of English, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque. Laura Coltelli is Associate Professor of American Literature, University of Pisa.
... Read more

Product Description
"My house is the red earth; it could be the center of the world."This is Navajo country, a land of mysterious and delicate beauty."Stephen Strom's photographs lead you to that place," writes Joy Harjo."The camera eye becomes a space you can move through into the powerful landscapes that he photographs.The horizon may shift and change all around you, but underneath it is the heart with which we move."Harjo's prose poems accompany these images, interpreting each photograph as a story that evokes the spirit of the Earth.Images and words harmonize to evoke the mysteries of what the Navajo call the center of the world. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Joy Harjoperfect words to Stephen Strom's photos
Joy Harjo is a multi-talented artist - poetry and music (with Poetic Justice) available.Here she has paired her words to Stephen Strom's photographs.His photographs of landscapes have an unusual and veryeffective use of colors ... many reminding me of the softness of watercoloror pastels.

Joy Harjo has provided text - somewhere between prose andprose poems - that engage the accompanying photographs to create a mythicsense.For example a photo of rose-tinted desert sand with no sky(Overlook west of Tuba City)is accompanied by "Two sisters meet onhorseback.They gossip: a cousin eloped with someone's husband, twins wereborn to his wife.One is headed toward Tsaile, and the other to RoundRock.Their horses are rose sand, with manes of ashy rock."

Anexcellent book.

Living poetry, connecting all things
Nowhere have I read poetry that so completely encompasses the Native American view of the connectedness of all things. Harjo's writings, coupled with Steven Strom's photography of "Indian country" make this a book that I read over and over, each time drawing something new. It is one of the only books I've ever read that convinces me that language is "alive", as alive as we are, as alive as the shoulder bone of a mountian, as alive as a comet which streaks its way across the sky. It is my favorite book. Period. ... Read more

Product Description
This is more than a book of poetry. Joy Harjo travels through many worlds, across many boundaries. Mvskoke tribal song and storytelling, Navajo and Hawaiian philosophies, the music of the Middle East, and the poetry of western civilizations can all be heard in these songs and stories that bear witness to the cruelties of history and the miracles of human kindness at the border between this century and the next. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Get out the map
What an incredible collection! This collection of poems and autobiographical stories is full of politics, poignant observations, philosophies, all to an indigenous beat, and all bearing witness to the madness of our world. And especially to the atrocities done in this world, past and present. By letting us see through her eyes, Harjo makes the politics personal, and brings the novice reader into her fiery views, making us feel and see in different ways. I was most affected by the prose stories between the poems. And judging by the other reviews, this isn't even Harjo's best work overall!

More personal (individual) less universal
I am fond of all Harjo's works - printed or recorded; I was surprised, then, when this volume left me less satisfied than usual with her work.Her writings have moved from poetry to poetry and prose poems to this book subtitled poems and tales - some of the tales are more essay than tale.Looking specifically at the essays, I realized why I was less satisfied with this book:her work is more personal, more self revealing in a way which makes it less universal.But one of the real strengths in much of her writting is that she writes of the particular - her Native American cultural background - in a way that makes it ring as true experience, as universal truth.

Once I recognized this shift and read A Map to the Next World with a mind set closer to how I would read confessional poetry, I began to appreciate some of the pieces I first considered weaker in a more favorable light - for example, the design of light and dark - an essay on snap judgment based on hue of skin.The piece Returning from the Enemy is a very strong autobiographical piece alternating prose and poetry - the former being individual and personal, the latter being more universal.The alternation of the two build upon each other as fact and truth ... an thus built a splendid foundation for understanding both the truth of Joy Harjo's life as well as truth of all our lives.

Her poetry has strong and wonderful images - from Songs from the House of Death, Or How to Make It Through to the End of a Relationship comes "I run my tongue over the skeleton / jutting from my jaw. I taste / the grit of heartbreak".

As usual, Joy Harjo is a master worth reading; this book simply requires a slight adjustment in effort of understanding.

A review from a New York reader
In A Map to the Next World Joy Harjo offers a powerful insight into her culture, rooted in profound spirituality. At the same time her words demolish the artificial boundaries between many worlds - physical,religious and cultural - mapping dynamic interchanges in a universaldimension. In a similar manner, her poems interact with the prose piecesthat follow. Such a format gives the reader an opportunity to listen to thepoet's own comments, the lucid and fluid process of her thoughts, theexperience from which the poem was written. The poetic voice and theautobiographical"I" thus become the poet and the storytellerwho interact with each other, adding a new layer to the poem - that of aspoken word, in her best native tradition. A Map to the Next World has thelyrical, visionary fire and original poetic technique of the previous booksby Harjo. However, this new collection opens up a larger picture of herworld: it articulates "the intricate context of history andfamily" (p.31), in which destruction and redemption lead to "thevery act of our beautiful survival" (p.51). Once again, Joy Harjo isbearing witness of her journey toward acceptance, wisdom and wholeness, inan outstanding poetic form.

The Essential Native Woman
There is not a more vital, imaginative, or creative Native writer than Joy Harjo being published today. She writes with such brutal honesty and lyrical clarity, that I come away from reading her works with goosebumps. Reading Joy Harjo is like standing out in the desert in an electricalstorm. Her newest work, "A Map to the Next World," takes thereader inside the psyche of the Native woman.I have heard her read thepiece, "The Power of Never," for example.It is one of thoserare pieces which has the power to change your mind, to transform the wayyou view your world and your attitude toward it. If you would like tohave insight into the mind of one of the major figures on the literaryscene today, you should buy "A Map to the Next World," and send acopy to a friend, and recommend it to another as I did. As a friend saidto me recently, "Joy Harjo is the real deal."And I can tell youfor fact...this is true.

Phil Hall, Executive Director Nizhoni Bridges,Inc.

Personal Work w/ Philosophical Wisdom to Live By
Though I was sometimes bothered by all the first-name references to the poet's friends and family as Harjo relates autobiographical stories and discoveries, I found much beauty in the personal history of a woman whosework I respect and admire. Harjo does not pretend to know the answers toall the important questions; instead she ponders along with the rest of us,sometimes in awe, sometimes in fear, and always with those words of wisdomthat comes from a seasoned observer and storyteller. This is a gem of abook that grows on you. ... Read more

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Product Description
POEMS OF: Elders—Birth—Children—Couples—Parenting—Family Portraits—Family Life—Aging—Death



POEMS BY: Elders: Louise Bogan, e.e. cummings, Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, Galway Kinnell, Denise Levertov, Audre Lorde, Edgar Lee Masters, Kenneth Patchen, Theodore Roethke, Muriel Rukeyser, William Carlos Williams, James Wright

Contemporaries: Nin Andrews, Maggie Anderson, Antler, Ellen Bass, Jeanne Marie Beaumont, Laura Treacy Bentley, Abigail Beckel, CL Bledsoe, Don Bogen, Allen Braden, Jeanne Bryner, Gregory Byrd, Neil Carpathias, Richard Carr, Johnson Cheu, Daryl Ngee Chinn, David Citino, Paola Corso, Alice Cone, Barbara Crooker, Thomas Rain Crowe, Jim Daniels, Kate Daniels, Todd Davis, Susan Elbe, Ann Fisher-Wirth, Diane Gilliam Fisher, Kathleen Fraser, Allen Frost, Richard Garcia, David Lee Garrison, Suzannah Gilman, William Greenway, Tina Mozelle Harris, Joy Harjo, Steven Haven, Rasma Haidri, David Hassler, Michael Hettich, Marianna Hofer, Holly Hughes, Bonnie Jacobson, Hershman John, George Kalamaras, Arthur Winfield Knight, Ted Kooser, Lolette Kuby, Li-Young Lee, Jim Lenfestey, Cathy Lentes, Lyn Lifshin, Diane Lockward, Laura Loomis,Jack McGuane, Michael McGriff, Irene McKinney, Sandra Marshburn, Peter Meinke, Andrew Merton, Corey Mesler, Robert Miltner, Greg Moglia, Sean Nevin, Edwina Pendarvis, Lynn Powell, David Pichaske, Chad Prevost, David Ray, Susan Rich, William Pitt Root, Michael Salinger, Vivian Shipley, Penelope Scambly Schott, Derek Sheffield, Noelle Sickels,Larry Smith, Gary Soto, Margo Solod, P. J. Taylor, Marianne Taylor, Richard Tayson, Susan Terris, Carine Topal, Jim Tolan, Eric Torgersen, Pamela Uschuk, Jeff Vande Zande, Claudia Van Gerven, Adam Vines, Gail Waldstein, Ron Wallace, Toshi Washizu, Mary E.Weems, Patricia Wellingham-Jones ... Read more

Product Description
This long-awaited anthology celebrates the experience of Native American women and is at once an important contribution to our literature and an historical document. It is the most comprehensive anthology of its kind to collect poetry, fiction, prayer, and memoir from Native American women. Over eighty writers are represented from nearly fifty nations, including such nationally known writers as Louise Erdrich, Linda Hogan, Leslie Marmon Silko, Lee Maracle, Janet Campbell Hale, and Luci Tapahonso; others-Wilma Mankiller, Winona LaDuke, and Bea Medicine-who are known primarily for their contributions to tribal communities; and some who are published here for the first time in this landmark volume. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Spellbinding Women's Literature
I bought this book out of my interest in Indian literature, but found that it resonated as deeply with my non-Indian womaness.Simple and clear, the writings take you all over the place and bring you back to yourself. Thanks to my Indian sisters.

exceptional range of work
I teach Native American literature. Since the publication of this book I have been unable to exclude it from my syllabus. Students almost unanimously have endorsed this choice, even when they had to shell out themoney for the hardcover. Now that it is in paperback, no one should excludeit.

I only regret that an anthology of similar quality of organization,focus, and selection does not exist for male and female Native writers. ... Read more

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Sara Littlecrow-Russell’s style emerges from the ancient and sacred tradition of storytelling, where legends were told not just to entertain, but to teach and, if necessary, to discipline. The power of the storyteller is the power of naming, to establish a relationship, a connection, and a sense of meaning. A name is both a bequest and a burden. Each of the poems in this collection is, in essence, a naming ritual. Sharply, energetically, and always provocatively, these poems name uncomfortable moments, complex emotions, and sudden, often wryly humorous realizations.As she explores how names imposed by outsiders both collide and merge with the identities that Natives create for themselves, these poems decisively counter the images of Indians as colorful dancers, stoic saints, and defeated warriors. These verses are not constructed of beautiful images, nor are they stories of redemption. Instead, Littlecrow-Russell offers stark and honest witness to urban and reservation life at the beginning of the twenty-first century. In short snaps of honed lyric and voice, she tackles topics ranging from family, love, and spirituality, to welfare, addiction, and the thorny politics of tribal identity. Her work displays tremendous bitterness and anger, but there is also dignity, humor, and plenty of irony. Candid and compelling, this collection brings fluent verse and human face to the commonly misrepresented experiences of Native Americans. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Destined to be a Classic
Sara Littlecrow Russell's debut book dishes out the horrors of bigotry with humor and a matter of fact tone that can only arrive in the company of truth.If you're looking for the feather and the flute, you've come to the wrong place.This is the fire and the blade.Nothing rings false.The poems feel as if they could have been written on paper bags while shopping yet with the surgical precision of finely honed craft.Honest, real and fleshy.So what are you waiting for?It belongs on the shelf of anyone who likes the direct gaze, the strong handshake, the wild dance.These poems do not waste your time, they ignite it.

Magdalena Gomez, Poet
www.myspace.com/magdalenagomez

Beautiful, inventive poetry.
A unique and thought-provoking book.Littlecrow writes with the voice of a strong survivor weaving the threads of tradition, belief and harsh reality in modern day America.Her writing is sharply clever and savagely witty yet shines with integrity.The images are vivid and accessible and will resonate with the reader struggling to hold their sanity in a world gone mad. A book to be savoured.

Vivid, fierce, powerfull, deep
I tried to read it one poem at a time, tried to take my time, to let it all soak in.But I stayed up very late reading it, until my eyes wouldn't stay open any longer, and when I woke, I was unable to get out of bed until I completed it.Now I keep my copy at work, so I can lend it out to folks.This collection of poetry is vivid, fierce, powerfull, deep. Poetry for the people.

It belongs on the top shelf, if you must keep it on a shelf...
...it would be more appropriate in the backpack, car, bedside table, work place, public library, etc. Sara's poems are awesome - like swallowing little razors and every cut gets you closer to the truth. Kind of like Sharon Olds only more dazzling and gutsy. I don't read too many poets but I bought seven of these and gave them all to people I care about. Buy two - one for you and one to leave at a bus stop somewhere. ... Read more

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In this powerful collection of poetry, Creek Indian Joy Harjo explores womanhood's most intimate moments. Professor, poetry award winner, performer, and former member of the National Council on the Arts, Harjo’s prose speaks of women's despair, of their imprisonment and ruin at the hands of men and society, but also of their awakenings, power, and love. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Not Only Did She Have Some Horses, But Some Damn Good Poetry Too
Although it is occasionally cryptic, She Had Some Horses presents a collection that contains within it's repertoire one of the best poetic qualities-it conveys general feelings as opposed to rigid and specific details. Through the use of outwardly dissociative comparisons and actions, Harjo creates moods and atmospheres with each offering in the collection. An uncommon talent, Harjo's poetry has a way of swirling off of the page and into your ears, running its syllables over your mind again and again and creating an emotion as easily as music does.

With moods set, her imagery jumps off of the page and into the eyes that are hidden deep within the imagination centers of your brain, and it does so with ease-as if it were second nature. More than a few of the poems seem like they were written once, perfect first drafts, showing that Harjo has yet another valuable poetic asset. In a genre filled to the brim with both the strange and eccentric, and the dull and boring, Harjo's style manages quite well to stand out.

in awe
I am in awe of the power of the title poem. I have read it over and over again for many years. So much power, truly awesome.

Thanks to PBS for introducing Joy Harjo
My introduction to Joy Harjo was her recitation of some of her poetry on a PBS special - that recitation included the title piece from this volume; it convinced me that I had to read her work.I have never been disappointed.Unlike her later books that contain a number of prose poems, this book contains only free form poems.However, the poems are often highly rhythmic in a musical sense - I was not suprised to find that she is an accomplished jazz saxophone player.Her images are creative and clear - brilliant word gems which are scattered in the poems: "horses neighing / at the razor sky"

The poetry is starkly truthful - universal human lives using alcohol to escape their pain, seeking love ...But this universality is expressed primarily from her Cree culture, expressed in a way that allows us to see another world view, to see her experience within that world view.

An example: "She feels the sky / tethered to the changing / earth, and her skin / responds, like a woman / to her lover."

Beautiful contemporary poetry not to be missed. ... Read more

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Modern American Indian life is urban, rural, and everything in-between. Lobo and Peters have compiled an unprecedented collection of innovative scholarship, stunning art, poetry, and prose that documents American Indian experiences of urban life. A pervasive rural/urban dichotomy still shapes the popular and scholarly perceptions of Native Americans, but this is a false expression of a complex and constantly changing reality. When viewed from the Native perspectives, our concepts of urbanity and approaches to American Indian studies are necessarily transformed. Courses in Native American studies, ethnic studies, anthropology, and urban studies must be in step with contemporary Indian realities, and American Indians and the Urban Experience will be an absolutely essential text for instructors. This powerful combination of path-breaking scholarship and visual and literary arts-from poetry and photography to rap and graffiti-will be enjoyed by students, scholars, and a general audience. ... Read more

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