Joy Harjo's Blog, page 3

Return to Iowa City

This has been quite a homecoming here in Iowa City. Last night an incredible dinner cooked by and at the home of Professor Linda Bolton. The evening ended with several of Linda's students and Linda and I in a circle. Linda addressed the power of teaching. She was my student years ago when I taught at the University of Arizona, in one of the best classes I ever had in Native literature. It gets

Health Care Standoff

Last night I wrote to my state senators, both Republican. They may not read the letters, but they need to know that not all of the constituency for whom they are responsible is in favor of their destructive stance. This standoff is dangerous. It is a stand of the rich against the poor. Revolutions are made of this. Ironically, most of the tea partiers need this healthcare, yet they've organized

This week begins Tuesday Night Blues Jam Session /Worksho...

This week begins Tuesday Night Blues Jam Session /Workshops with Blues Musician and Singer Selby Minner, of the Blues Hall of Fame in Rentiesville, OK for Creek Nation CitizensFor eight weeks September 10 through October 29, every Tuesday for two hours per session. All Creek community citizens invited, any age, any level. For students of guitar and bass and other players/ singers - drums,

The Cutthroat Online Writing Mentorship Program

Dear Readers, Here is your chance
to work on your writing for a month one-on-one with one of our noted writers!
We are registering for fall writing mentorships now. CONGRATULATIONS to our
mentor, Joy Harjo, for winning the 2013 PEN CENTER USA CREATIVE NONFICTION
AWARD for her memoir, CRAZY BRAVE.



2013-2014 FACULTY



ENVIRONMENTAL ESSAYS: LINDA HOGAN



MEMOIR: JOY HARJO and DOUG ANDERSON

Child Theft

Native child theft isn't just the obvious, like the Cherokee case we are following where the child was trafficked by an attorney and "given" to a South Carolina couple, it has to do with education. In my elementary school in Tulsa, which was essentially on tribal lands, we learned that we were "other" and on the outside. We need our own Mvskoke schools with Mvskoke values. This will make for

CONTEST in honor of the paperback release of CRAZY BRAVE

First, thank you/mvto to all those who have supported the story, my poetry and music.
I'm having a contest.
I will send a signed, hardback copy of CRAZY BRAVE and a CD of my original music to the best crazy brave stories I receive from you, from your life--one page or less, via FB. I'll pick the top three to ten, depending on the number of stories I receive. I'll post the best here and on my

Fire Study

Study in Fire, Taos, 2013 c Joy Harjo and Mekko Productions Inc.

Glenpool Creek Indian Community Demonstration and Dance Party Tonight

Tonight: *Indian Tacos by Autumn Star Catering, a Mvskoke/Creek business by Tricia FieldsAlex Alexander*George Coser's Wednesday Night Stomp Dance Group*Selby Minner and her Blues Band (I'll be sitting in)* D.j. Sapphire Satepauhoodle spinning tunes for a community dance. I've requested funk, soul, r and b, etc.Starts at 6PM at the Glenpool Creek Indian Community Center off of 141st and Highway

Green Corn

Green Corn or busk, our Mvskoke new year is inherently about the acknowledgement and honoring of the plant world. We become in harmony with it. Our human worlds and plant worlds are utterly interdependent. Or rather, we are more dependent on them, than us, but our decisions matter, not just to seven generations and more of human descendants, but to the seven or more plant descendants, animal

Independence Day

I celebrate independence anywhere it happens. The question here is how. When a diversity of peoples is destroyed or diminished in a holocaust of outrageous proportions for independence, does this truly result in liberty, justice and freedom for all? In a few generations indigenous peoples of America have been reduced to one-half of one percent. Imagine Africa with one-half of one percent Africans