Joy Harjo: Poet Laureate of the United States: Home

The author draws on her Native American heritage to offer poems combining elements of storytelling, prayer, and song.

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.

In this powerful collection of poetry, Creek Indian Joy Harjo explores womanhood's most intimate moments. 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.

The Spiral of Memory gathers conversations in which Harjo has articulated her singular yet universal perspective on the world and her poetry.

In these conversations, Harjo takes us on a journey into her identity as a woman and an artist, poised between poetry and music, encompassing tribal heritage and reassessments and comparisons with the American cultural patrimony.