Joy Harjo

Born: 1951-05-09

Joy Har­jo, the 23rd Poet Lau­re­ate of the U.S., is a mem­ber of the Mvskoke Nation and belongs to Oce Vpofv (Hick­o­ry Ground). She is only the second poet to be appoint­ed a third term as U.S. Poet Laureate. Born in Tul­sa, Okla­homa, she left home to attend high school at the inno­v­a­tive Insti­tute of Amer­i­can Indi­an Arts, which was then a Bureau of Indi­an Affairs school. Har­jo began writ­ing poet­ry as a mem­ber of the Uni­ver­si­ty of New Mexico’s Native stu­dent orga­ni­za­tion, the Kiva Club, in response to Native empow­er­ment move­ments. She went on to earn her MFA at the Iowa Writ­ers’ Work­shop and teach Eng­lish, Cre­ative Writ­ing, and Amer­i­can Indi­an Stud­ies at Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­­for­­nia-Los Ange­les, Uni­ver­si­ty of New Mex­i­co, Uni­ver­si­ty of Ari­zona, Ari­zona State, Uni­ver­si­ty of Illi­nois, Uni­ver­si­ty of Col­orado, Uni­ver­si­ty of Hawai’i, Insti­tute of Amer­i­can Indi­an Arts, and Uni­ver­si­ty of Ten­nessee, while per­form­ing music and poet­ry nation­al­ly and internationally.


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Imagining the Indian: The Fight Against Native American Mascoting

as Interviewee (Self)
Released: 2021-01-14

Examining the movement that is ending the use of Native American names, logos, and mascots in...

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Love and Fury

as Herself
Released: 2020-06-12

Filmmaker Sterlin Harjo follows Native artists for a year as they navigate their careers in the...

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Words from a Bear

as Self
Released: 2019-01-29

A visual journey into the mind and soul of Pulitzer Prize–winning author Navarro Scott Momaday,...

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Cara Romero: Following the Light

as Herself
Released: 2022-10-16

Cara Romero's contemporary fine art photography captures Indigenous and non-Indigenous cultural...

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Khonsay: Poem of Many Tongues

as Self
Released:

Khonsay: Poem of Many Tongues is a tribute and call to action for linguistic diversity. A...

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Medicine Woman

as Self - Narrator (voice)
Released: 2016-08-12

America's first Native doctor, Susan La Flesche Picotte (1865-1915) studied medicine at a time...

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Jaune Quick-To-See Smith

as Narrative Poetry
Released: 1982-01-01

Jaune Quick-To-See-Smith, Shoshone French Cree painter, discusses her abstract paintings, which...

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Games of the North

as Narrator
Released: 2011-04-18

For thousands of years, traditional Inuit sports have been vital for survival within the...

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