Joy Harjo

Joy Harjo ( HAR-joh; born May 9, 1951) is an American poet, musician, playwright, and author. She served as the 23rd United States poet laureate from 2019 to 2022, the first Native American to hold that honor. She was also only the second Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to have served three terms (after Robert Pinsky). Harjo is a seventh-generation descendant of Monahwee (also known as Menawa) of the Muscogee people. Additionally, Harjo is a citizen of the Muscogee Nation (Este Mvskokvlke) and belongs to Oce Vpofv (Hickory Ground). She is an important figure in the second wave of the literary Native American Renaissance of the late 20th century. She studied at the Institute of American Indian Arts, completed her undergraduate degree at University of New Mexico in 1976, and earned an MFA degree at the University of Iowa in its creative writing program. In addition to writing books and other publications, Harjo has taught in numerous United States universities, performed internationally at poetry readings and music events, and released seven albums of her original music. Harjo is the author of ten books of poetry and three children's books, The Good Luck Cat, For a Girl Becoming, and Remember. Her books also include Weaving Sundown in a Scarlet Light (2022), Catching the Light (2022), Poet Warrior (2021), An American Sunrise (2019), Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings (2015), Crazy Brave (2012), and How We Became Human: New and Selected Poems 1975–2002 (2004), among others. She is the recipient of the 2024 Frost Medal from the Poetry Society of America, the 2023 Bollingen Prize, the 2023 Harper Lee Award, the 2023 Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Book Critics Circle, the 2022 Lifetime Achievement Award from Americans for the Arts, a 2022 Leadership Award from the Academy of American Poets,...