Book 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

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

Book Description

Customer Reviews (2)

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

Book Description
Joy Harjo is a powerful voice for her Creek (Muscogee) tribe ("a stolen people in a stolen land"), for other oppressed people, and for herself. Her poems, both sacred ad secular, are written with the passions of anger, grief, and love, at once tender and furious. They are rooted in the land; they are one with the deer and the fox, the hawk and the eagle, the sun, moon, and wind, and the seasons - "spring/ was lean and hungry with he hope of children and corn." There are enemies here, also lovers; there are ghost dancers, ancestors old and new, who rise again "to walk in shoes of fire."

Indeed, fire and its aftermath is a constant image in the burning book. Skies are "incendiary"; the "smoke of dawn" turns enemies into ashes: "I am fire eaten by wind." "Your fire scorched/ my lips." "I am lighting the fire that crawls from my spine/ to the gods with a coal from my sister's flame."

But the spirit of this book is not consumed. It is not limited by mad love or war, and "there is something larger than the memory/ of a dispossessed people." That something larger is, for example, revolution, freedom, birth. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

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

Book Description

Term paper due tomorrow? Need to cram for a test? Or just looking for the best information about a favorite literary work?

Turn to "Poetry for Students" to get your research done in record time. Brought to you by Thomson Gale--the world's leading source of literary criticism and analysis--this e-doc contains: author biography; poem summary; poem text (if available); discussion of the work's themes, style, and historical context; a compendium of in-depth critical material; study questions; suggestions for further reading; and much more.

Why choose "Poetry for Students"? Because no other source offers so much in such a compact package. Trust the experts: Thomson Gale--and "Poetry for Students."Download Description

Term paper due tomorrow? Need to bone up for a test? Or just looking for the best information about a favorite literary work?

Turn to "Poetry for Students" to get your research done in record time. Brought to you by the Gale Group--the world's leading source of literary criticism and analysis--this e-doc contains: author biography; poem summary; poem text (if available); discussion of the work's themes, style, and historical context; a compendium of in-depth critical material; study questions; suggestions for further reading; and much more.

Why choose "Poetry for Students"? Because no other source offers so much in such a compact package. Trust the experts: The Gale Group--and "Poetry for Students." ... Read more

Book Description

Book Description
This digital document is an article from World Literature Today, published by Thomson Gale on November 1, 2007. The length of the article is 686 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: A brief conversation with Joy Harjo.(Interview)
Author: Gale Reference Team
Publication: World Literature Today (Magazine/Journal)
Date: November 1, 2007
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 81Issue: 6Page: 33(1)

Article Type: Interview

Distributed by Thomson Gale ... Read more

Book Description
This digital document, covering the life and work of Joy Harjo, is an entry from Contemporary Authors, a reference volume published by Thompson Gale. The length of the entry is 4918 words. The page length listed above is based on a typical 300-word page. Although the exact content of each entry from this volume can vary, typical entries include the following information:

• Place and date of birth and death (if deceased)
• Family members
• Education
• Professional associations and honors
• Employment
• Writings, including books and periodicals
• A description of the author's work
• References to further readings about the author

Product Description
videocassette 1 hour ... Read more

Book 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

Book Description

Star Quilt

These are notes to lightning in my bedroom.
A star forged from linen thread and patches.
Purple, yellow, red like diamond suckers, children

of the star gleam on sweaty nights. The quilt unfolds
against sheets, moving, warm clouds of Chinook.
It covers my cuts, my red birch clusters under pine.

Under it your mouth begins a legend,
and wide as the plain, I hope Wisconsin marshes
promise your caress. The candle locks

us in forest smells, your cheek tattered
by shadow. Sweetened by wings, my mothlike heart
flies nightly among geraniums.

We know of land that looks lonely,
but isn't, of beef with hides of velveteen,
of sorrow, an eddy in blood.

Star quilt, sewn from dawn light by fingers
of flint, take away those touches
meant for noisier skins,

annoint us with grass and twilight air,
so we may embrace, two bitter roots
pushing back into the dust.

Book Description
This long-awaited anthology celebrates the experience ofNative American women and is at once an important contribution to ourliterature and an historical document. It is the most comprehensiveanthology of its kind to collect poetry, fiction, prayer, and memoir fromNative American women. Over eighty writers are represented from nearlyfifty nations, including such nationally known writers as Louise Erdrich,Linda Hogan, Leslie Marmon Silko, Lee Maracle, Janet Campbell Hale, andLuci Tapahonso; others-Wilma Mankiller, Winona LaDuke, and BeaMedicine-who are known primarily for their contributions to tribalcommunities; and some who are published here for the first time in thislandmark 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

Book Description
This digital document is an article from World Literature Today, published by Thomson Gale on November 1, 2007. The length of the article is 618 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: No.(Four Poems)(Poem)
Author: Joy Harjo
Publication: World Literature Today (Magazine/Journal)
Date: November 1, 2007
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 81Issue: 6Page: 34(1)

Article Type: Poem

Distributed by Thomson Gale ... Read more

Book Description
This digital document is an article from World Literature Today, published by Thomson Gale on November 1, 2007. The length of the article is 596 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Equinox.(Four Poems)(Poem)
Author: Joy Harjo
Publication: World Literature Today (Magazine/Journal)
Date: November 1, 2007
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 81Issue: 6Page: 36(1)

Article Type: Poem

Distributed by Thomson Gale ... Read more