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Born in Tulsa, Oklahoma and an enrolled
member of the Muskogee Tribe, Joy
Harjo came to New Mexico to attend the
Institute of American Indian Arts where she studied
painting and theatre, not music and poetry, though
she did write a few lyrics for an Indian acid
rock band. Joy attended the University of New
Mexico where she received her B.A. in 1976, followes
by an M.F.A. from the University of Iowa. She
has also taken part in a non-degree program in
Filmmaking from the Anthropology Film Center.
She began writing poetry when the
national Indian political climate demanded singers
and speakers, and was taken by the intensity and
beauty possible in the craft. Her most recent
book of poetry is the best-selling The Woman Who
Fell From the Sky. It wasn't until she was in
Denver that she took up the saxophone because
she wanted to learn how to sing and had in mind
a band that would combine the poetry with a music
there were no words yet to define, a music involving
elements of tribal musics, jazz and rock. She
eventually returned to New Mexico where she began
the first stirrings of what was to be Joy Harjo
and Poetic Justice when she began working with
Susan Williams. Their first meeting occurred several
years before in Blues Alley in Washington, D.C.,
a hint of things to come.
Joy has published in magazines
such as Massachusetts Review, Ploughshares, River
Styx, Contact II, The Bloomsbury Review, Journal
of Ethnic Studies, American Voice, Sonora Review,
Kenyon Review, Beloit Poetry Review, Greenfield
Review and Puerto del Sol. She has made recordings,
done screenwriting, given readings all over the
world and is now performing with Poetic Justice. |
2/23/00: Book-of-the-Month: "A Map to the
Next World"
(Listen)
(more info...)
Visit her website:
http://www.joyharjo.com/
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