Joy Harjo’s Notable Poems and Books

Joy Harjo is a poet, author, and musician; she became the first Native American Poet Laureate in 2019. Joy was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, as a citizen of the Mvskoke Nation, a self-governed Indigenous tribe in the United States. She attended the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico, as a teenager and graduated from the University of New Mexico. She went on to earn her MFA at the Iowa Writ­ers’ Work­shop. Joy has written several landmark poetry collections, two memoirs, plays and screenplays, musicals, and children’s books.

Joy began writing poetry in the early 1970s, during the US’s civil rights movement and as a renaissance of contemporary Native art was underway. Poetry became a means of exploring her life as a Native person in the US, and the belief that creativity is a human right became the basis of Joy’s poetry, writing, teaching, and, later, her music. Joy also plays the saxophone and flute and has released seven studio albums. She has performed internationally with the Arrow Dynamics Band and Joy Harjo and Poetic Justice and taught creative writing at a handful of top colleges and universities.

Joy has earned many fellowships, awards, and honors. Some of her notable achievements include:

• William Carlos Williams Award: Joy Harjo earned the William Carlos Williams Award in 1991. The Poetry Society of America bestows the award on a poet published by a university, nonprofit, or small press.
• Native American Music Award: Joy won this award, also called a NAMMY, in the category Best Female Artist of the Year in 2009 for her Winding Through the Milky Way album.
• PEN USA Literary Award in Creative Nonfiction: Joy earned the 2013 PEN USA Literary Award, a prestigious award that honors notable voices across various genres, for her first memoir, Crazy Brave. The memoir also won the American Book Award.
• Wallace Stevens Award: The Academy of American Poets rewarded Joy with the Wallace Stevens Award, which recognizes a writer’s mastery over poetry, in 2015.
• Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize for Lifetime Achievement from the Poetry Foundation: This distinguished literary award, which Joy won in 2017, honors a living poet from the United States.
• Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets: In 2019, Joy joined the Board of Chancellors for the Academy of American Poets, which advocates for poets and poetry across the United States. In this position, she serves as a judge for the Academy’s prizes, advises on programs, and serves to further the organization’s mission to connect people to poetry.
• US Poet Laureate: Joy achieved the country’s highest honor for poetry in 2019 when she became the twenty-third Poet Laureate. In this role, Joy’s signature project is “Living Nations, Living Words,” an interactive collection of Native poetry. The project is available online through the Library of Congress.
• I Pray for My Enemies: In 2021, she released her seventh album.

Joy published her first chapbook, The Last Song, in 1975, and in 1980 debuted her full-length poetry book, What Moon Drove Me to This? Here are some of her notable poems:

1. 1. “She Had Some Horses” (1983): The titular poem from her breakthrough collection is one of her most anthologized poems. Nearly every line in the first section begins with the same phrase, echoing the title: “She had horses who were…” Each successive line turns these horses into different figures, which Joy uses to explore various themes, from misogyny and substance abuse to attaining freedom and self-actualization. This is an example of poetic anaphora, the repetition of a word or sequence of words at the beginning of successive clauses, phrases, or sentences.
2. 2. “The Path to the Milky Way Leads Through Los Angeles” (2003): A meditation on identity and materialism, this poem is part of Joy’s acclaimed poetry collection How We Became Human: New and Selected Poems 1975–2002, which gathers some of her earliest and most influential works.
3. 3. “Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings” (2017): In this piece, Joy uses the language of conflict management techniques to structure six sections that investigate Native American experiences. She writes about ancestors, homelands, massacres, treaties, dancing, and resilience. The title of this poem is also the title of Joy’s tenth poetry collection, which W.W. Norton published in 2017.
4. 4. “An American Sunrise” (2019): This is the titular poem from Joy’s 2019 poetry collection published by W. W. Norton. In this poem, and in others in the collection, Joy brings to light the overlooked history of Indigenous peoples.

Joy has written poetry, memoirs, plays, screenplays, musicals, and children’s books.
Here are six of the poet’s most notable books:

1. 1. She Had Some Horses (1983): Her breakthrough collection established Joy as a preeminent contemporary poet and helped her garner international recognition. While literary magazines and publishers initially rejected many of the book’s poems, the work is now considered a classic.
2. 2. The Woman Who Fell From the Sky (1994): This book of poetry received the Oklahoma Book Arts Award.
3. 3. For a Girl Becoming (2009): This children’s book examines some of the themes that recur in Joy Harjo’s poetry: womanhood, ancestors, and the importance of finding a connection to the land.
4. 4. How We Became Human: New and Selected Poems 1975–2001 (2002): The National Endowment for the Arts selected this collection of Joy Harjo’s poetry for the Big Read initiative in 2016.
5. 5. Crazy Brave (2013): Joy’s first memoir explores her drive to become a poet and how the arts helped free her from a cycle of domestic violence.
6. 6. Poet Warrior (2021): In this memoir, Joy examines her path to poetry, tracing her influences and sharing her story of abuse and loss.

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