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Joy Harjo Quotes

born 1951 United States

Joy Harjo (May 9, 1951) is a poet, musician, author and the first Native American United States Poet Laureate.

United States
20th-century poets
Authors
Musicians
Playwrights

Random Joy Harjo quote

22 quotes

To find ourselves spoken for in art gives dignity to our pain, our anger, our losses.

We are story gatherers. That's what we humans do.

The most powerful poetry is birthed through cracks in history, through what is broken and unseen.

Catching the Light (2022)

America has always been multicultural, before the term became ubiquitous, before colonization, and it will be after.

An Interview with Joy Harjo, U.S. Poet Laureate” in Poets.org (2019)

When she broke on Earth, the light in her was not broken. We cannot break light, nor can we destroy it.

Catching the Light (2022)

Those of fire move about the earth with inspiration and purpose. They are creative, and can consume and be consumed by their desires (p25)

Crazy Brave: A Memoir (2012)

Poetry and living — they’re often the same thing.

with On Being (2021)

A story matrix connects all of us. (p28)

Crazy Brave: A Memoir (2012)

Our class and our generation really shifted Native art, in the contemporary world art scene.

with On Being (2021)

A family is essentially a field of stories, each intricately connected. Death does not sever the connection; rather, the story expands as it continues unwinding inter-dimensionally. (p30)

Poet Warrior: A Memoir (2021)

Poetry has given me a voice, a way to speak, and it has certainly enriched my vision so that I can see more clearly.

with Bill Moyers (1989)

We must know the mythic structures that define us.

An Interview with Joy Harjo, U.S. Poet Laureate” in Poets.org (2019)

I always play or perform music with my poetry. When poetry came into the world, it did not arrive by itself, but it came with music and dance.

The First Native American U.S. Poet Laureate on How Poetry Can Counter Hate” in Time Magazine (2019)

It's like this, living is like a diamond or how they cut really fine stones. There are not just two sides but there are so many and they all make up a whole.

Survival This Way by Joseph Bruchac (1987)

I believe that if you do not answer the noise and urgency of your gifts, they will turn on you. Or drag you down with their immense sadness at being abandoned. (p135)

Crazy Brave: A Memoir (2012)

There were no Native names in the American book of poetry when I began writing poetry, though there are many.

An Interview with Joy Harjo, U.S. Poet Laureate” in Poets.org (2019)

You were born of a generation that promised to help remember. (p23)

Poet Warrior: A Memoir (2021)

Every soul has a distinct song. (p19)

Crazy Brave: A Memoir (2012)

The traditional ways and rituals of all of Earth's peoples are kept in containers of poetry, song, and story. It is how we know who we are, where we are coming from and who we are becoming.

Catching the Light (2022)

For me, dancing has always meant the ability to move about in the world without question. (2009)

collected in Soul Talk, Song Language (2003)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Joy Harjo (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.