Muscogee/Cherokee Poet, Musician, and Author Joy Harjo Matthew Ryan Smith, Ph.D
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
From the SelectedWorks of Matthew Ryan Smith, Ph.D. Summer 2020 Muscogee/Cherokee Poet, Musician, and Author Joy Harjo Matthew Ryan Smith, Ph.D. Available at: https://works.bepress.com/matthewryansmith/167/ ART+LIT Muscogee/Cherokee Poet, Musician, and Author JOY HARJO By Matthew Ryan Smith, PhD ORN IN TULSA, in the Muscogee (Creek) Nation within Oklahoma, Joy Harjo moved to Santa Fe, New BMexico, when she turned 16. She enrolled in the Institute of American Indian Arts, then a Bureau of Indian Affairs boarding high school where she studied painting. She later enrolled at the University of New Mexico in premedical studies but changed her major to visual art before settling on creative writing. Harjo later received a master’s degree in creative writing from the University of Iowa in 1978. From the late 1970s to the mid-1990s, she taught at a number of post-secondary institutions including Arizona State University, the University of Colorado, and the University of New Mexico. As a singer and player of alto saxo- phone and flute, Harjo has made music earliest impulse was to draw and paint. It what can be depicted powerfully with a with the bands Poetic Justice and Arrow was there I felt a sense of accomplishment, gesture. Dynamics. In 2009 she was awarded best of bringing into vision what I was seeing female artist at the Native American and feeling, often what could not be seen MRS: Be it a paintbrush, a pen, or a Music Awards. She is the author of books or expressed. I always had a sense during keyboard, can you speak about the act including An American Sunrise (2019), the act of creation that I was surrounded of creation itself and how it relates to Crazy Brave (2012), For a Girl Becoming by ancestors who loved me, who would your philosophical approach to writing? (2009), and How We Became Human: New stand by me no matter what lessons I JH: I have always just delved into creation, and Selected Poems 1975–2002 (2004). encountered. Even if I failed, they stood though have worked through my share of For her literature, activism, and by me with understanding, and with art: blocks, which includes a perfectionistic performances, Harjo has received their arts of speaking, creating, and being. streak that can be useful but can get in the numerous prestigious awards such as Being a real human being is an art in itself. way. If I had been required to learn every- a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2014, the As I prepare to draw and paint thing there was to know about writing Wallace Stevens Award in Poetry in 2015, again, I remember that I preferred oils poetry before writing poetry, I would and was named the United States Poet because of the smell of the paint. With never have written. I followed a voice. Laureate in 2019 and again in 2020. painting I entered into a very sensual, It was my own, and different, and very perceptive experience with form and idea. MRS: It is a pleasure for me to speak Mvskoke at its roots. The poetry world Becoming a writer or poet was never in with you, Joy. What drew you to study for the longest time did not get it. With my plan until my second or third year at poetry, just as with painting, I follow color painting at age 16, and how did it help the university. I was going to become an or line and a vision of what I have never you transition to creative writing? artist. I loved music but felt shut off from seen or heard before. That doesn’t mean I the creation of it, until I reopened the JH: In my early years I was inspired don’t study or read. I am always studying, door in the very early 1990s. I’ve always by paintings and drawings made by reading, listening, and practice. Though said I write like a painter because I am my grandmother Naomi Harjo. They it’s best not to call it practice—rather, you drawn to image, resonant moment, and decorated the walls of our home. My perform as if you are not practicing. 84 | WWW.FIRSTAMERICANARTMAGAZINE.COM ART+LIT MRS: The connection between language and care has fascinated me lately. Does care through language (writing, oral communication, etc.) exist, and, if it does, how does it affect past generations, the current generation, and future generations? JH: If caring figures into the shape and trajectory of intent, there is more of a chance of landing close to the heart, to the root of meaning. I don’t believe the connection is just with language. I iden- tify “care” as attention and the will to take care to the best of your ability—to give attention, to be aware that whatever you say or do, or however you act will affect everyone around you to some extent, and will follow in the direction of children, grandchildren, and so on down and through the net of relationships. What stories do we tell ourselves, about our families, peoples, and history? Every one of us has a part. Each of us matters. MRS: What do you struggle with when writing? JH: What I’ve always struggled with is time, with finding time given all the responsibilities I have shouldered from when I began writing as a single mother, full-time student with a job. Women artists with children have the most diffi- cult time finding time for their craft, for imagining, and working out their visions. I remember a discussion with the Laguna Pueblo writer Leslie Silko years ago when I was a graduate student at Iowa and enthralled with the paintings of Georgia that it’s best if I have a project in mind O’Keeffe. I expressed frustration at finding and or a deadline. What’s also important the time to write as I took care of children, is time away from the screen, the phone, studied with a full load of classes, and and disappearing into the natural world, worked. She reminded me that O’Keeffe the world of inspiration and ideas. had no children or responsibilities to a above Daniel McCoy larger familial community. Native women MRS: Why is writing a means of Jr. (Muscogee/Citizen connecting to family, to community, Potawatomi), Village with who are active in their tribal communities Stream, 2020, watercolor and also have other layers of responsibilities. and to others? India ink on illustration board, I don’t have children at home, but am a 10 × 8 in. Image courtesy of the artist. grandmother and great-grandmother JH:I believe that any art is or can be. Writing began for me as an act of opposite Joy Harjo. Photo: of many, and I am an active community Shawn Miller, US Library of member. When I was coming up as a social justice. I was an undergrad at the Congress (CC0). young artist/writer/musician, I noticed University of New Mexico when I began that all the male artists who were so writing poetry. My gift and practice prolific had a girlfriend or wife (or two) emerged from a need to bring justice to caring for them. I have so many projects Native peoples and to speak the story that in line that it can be hard to focus. I find was unfolding around Indian Country in SUMMER 2020 | 85 ART+LIT the early ’70s. I was a member of the Kiva Club, the Native student club at UNM. We became a political force in the state for Native rights. Those meetings and actions politicized me. I also began to notice that women’s voices were not usually in the public. Rather, we were more domestic in our expression. My poetry became part of that expression. It related directly to the community, and I meant for my poetry to speak the truth, and then as I developed, to assist us in moving toward sovereignty. I wasn’t the only one. There were and are many artists and writers of my gener- ation continuing into the present. I always remember the artist Jaune Quick-To-See- Smith. She was out there making art that spoke social justice even as it broke new ground in the field of art. And she helped so many Native artists. Leslie Silko and Simon Ortiz, of course, were writing. I see the Lakota poet Layli Long Soldier continuing in that [vein]. I’ve always felt that my work is first and essentially for my tribal community, even as it has accumulated a world audience. MRS: There is a deep relationship between absorbing experiences and writing about experiences. What are your thoughts on this relationship? JH: Of course. We are in an active story field. MRS: What, if any, is the book you haven’t written yet but always wanted to? JH: I am working on the sequel to my memoir, Crazy Brave. I’ve always wanted to write a book on Indigenous canoes and canoe culture. I was a canoe paddler the eleven years I lived in Hawai’i. I would love to see a dramatic film of the story of the life of a grandfather I am close to, though he had passed this world before I was born: Monahwee. He was a Red Stick warrior and fought directly with Andrew Jackson against illegal removal. That whole period contains many stories from our families that need to be told. And a music album or set of albums with the songs catalogued within my cousin Joe Sulphur’s memory.