On the River with Joy Harjo, Our New U.S. Poet Laureate

When women gather at the river, something rather wonderful happens. We have, after all (like eagles), been gathering at the river for thousands of years. To bathe our children. To wash our clothes. To gather water for drinking, for ceremony, for cleansing. Even, like the eagles, to catch the fish we will feed our families.


Six years ago, 18 of us gathered on the Colorado River with Joy Harjo. We laughed. We bathed. We danced. We wrote in our journals. We asked, "How do we know when a story en...