She Had Some Horses

by Joy Harjo

In this powerful collection of poetry, Creek Indian Joy Harjo explores womanhood's most intimate moments. Professor, poetry award winner, performer, and former member of the National Council on the Arts, Harjo’s prose speaks of women's despair, of their imprisonment and ruin at the hands of men and society, but also of their awakenings, power, and love.

Genres: Poetry, Native American, Indigenous, Feminism, History, Nonfiction, Adult

96 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1982

About the author

Bio Joy Harjo
Joy Harjo was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma and is a member of the Mvskoke Nation. She has released four award-winning CD's of original music and won a Native American Music Award (NAMMY) for Best Female Artist of the Year. She performs nationally and internationally solo and with her band, The Arrow Dynamics. She has appeared on HBO's Def Poetry Jam, in venues in every major U.S. city and internationally. Most recently she performed We Were There When Jazz Was Invented at the Chan Centre at UBC in Vancouver, BC, and appeared at the San Miguel Writer’s Conference in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. Her one-woman show, Wings of Night Sky, Wings of Morning Light, which features guitarist Larry Mitchell premiered in Los Angeles in 2009, with recent performances at Joe’s Pub in New York City, LaJolla Playhouse as part of the Native Voices at the Autry, and the University of British Columbia. Her seven books of poetry include such well-known titles as How We Became Human- New and Selected Poems and She Had Some Horses. Her awards include the New Mexico Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts, the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native Writers Circle of the Americas, and the William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America. She was recently awarded 2011 Artist of the Year from the Mvskoke Women’s Leadership Initiative, and a Rasmuson US Artists Fellowship. She is a founding board member and treasurer of the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation. Harjo writes a column Comings and Goings for her tribal newspaper, the Muscogee Nation News. Soul Talk, Song Language, Conversations with Joy Harjo was recently released from Wesleyan University Press. Crazy Brave, a memoir is her newest publication from W.W. Norton, and a new album of music is being produced by the drummer/producer Barrett Martin. She is at work on a new shows: We Were There When Jazz Was Invented, a musical story that proves southeastern indigenous tribes were part of the origins of American music. She lives in the Mvskoke Nation of Oklahoma.

Reviews

[Brina · Rating 5 out of 5]

On long winter nights I turn to poetry as comfort reads and usually read one collection a week before bed, sometimes more. After a long day it helps me to unwind as I picture the images painted on the canvas of words. I have some go to poets, contemporary women who everything they write is gold, and I am systematically reading through every collection that these women have written until I run out and have to begin anew. Current U.S. poet laureate Joy Harjo is one of my preferred poets. She is a member of the Creek nation of Oklahoma and the first Native American to hold the title of poet laureate. Her poems speak of difficult topics but are awash in imagery befitting of poetry in motion, the type of poems I choose to read at night before bed. I have read a number of Harjo’s poetry collections at this point as well as a memoir and picture book for young readers. All have been a delight to read. She Had Some Horses is one of Harjo’s earlier collections. I would not do her justice if I attempted to analyze her words, and that is why she is the poet laureate, not me. I leave you with some of Harjo’s moving words:

Excerpt from Vision:
In Isleta the rainbow was a crack
in the universe. We saw the barest
of all life that is possible.
Bright horses rolled over
and over the dusking sky.
I heard the thunder of their beating
hearts. Their lungs hit air
and sang. All the colors of horses
formed the rainbow,
and formed us
watching them.

Excerpt from She Remembers the Future:
She feels the sky
tethered to the changing
earth, and her skin
responds, like a woman to her lover.
It could be days, it could
be years, White Sands
or Tucson.
She asks,
“Should I dream you afraid
so that you are forced to save
yourself?

Or should you ride colored horses
into the cutting edge of the sky
to know

that we’re alive
we are alive.”

5 beautiful stars

[liv ❁ · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is some of the first poetry I’ve sat down and read in my life and now I’m mourning the time lost with years of my life filled with a weird aversion to poetry because this is one of the best things I have ever read. Harjo has such an incredible way of using words to convey such strong emotions. I picked this up on a whim today and sat, reading it aloud to myself, until I finished it. There were multiple times where I had to stop because I was so amazed that I couldn’t find the words to keep reading for a moment. The introduction on Harjo’s connection to horses was such a beautiful way to start this collection as well.

I’m not too well-versed (ha ha) in writing reviews for poetry yet, so I’ll let the collection speak for itself through some of my favorites; maybe after poetry summer I’ll be able to convey my awe with proper words.

Vision
The rainbow touched down
“somewhere in the Rio Grande,”
we said. And saw the light of it
from your mother’s house in Isleta.
How it curved down between earth
and the deepest sky to give us horses
of color
horses that were within us all of this time
but we didn’t see them because
we wait for the easiest vision
to save us.
In Isleta the rainbow was a crack
in the universe. We saw the barest
of all life that is possible.
Bright horses rolled over
and over the dusking sky.
I heard the thunder of their beating
hearts. Their lungs hit air
and sang. All the colors of horses
formed the rainbow,
and formed us
watching them.


She Remembers The Future
“We are closer than
blood,” Noni Daylight
tells her. “It isn’t
Oklahoma or the tribal
blood but something more
that we speak.”

(The otherself knows
and whispers
to herself.)

The air could choke, could
Kill, the way it tempts
Noni to violence, this
morning. But she needs
the feel of danger,
for life.

She feels the sky
tethered to the changing
earth, and her skin
responds, like a woman
to her lover.
It could be days, it could
be years, White Sands
or Tuscon.
She asks,
“Should I dream you afraid
so that you are forced to save
yourself?”

Or should you ride colored horses
into the cutting edge of the sky
to know

that we’re alive
we are alive.”


II. Two Horses

I thought the sun breaking through Sangre de Cristo
Mountains was enough, and that
wild musky scents on my body after
long nights of dreaming could
unfold me to myself.
I thought my dance alone through worlds of
odd and eccentric planets that no one else knew
would sustain me. I mean
I did learn to move
after all.
and how to recognize voices other than the most familiar.
But you must have grown out of
a thousand years dreaming
just like I could never imagine you.
You must have
Broke open from another sky
to here, because
now I see you as a part of the millions of
other universes that I thought could never occur
in this breathing.
And I know you as myself, traveling.
In your eyes alone are many colonies of stars
and other circling planet motion.
And then your fingers, the sweet smell
of hair, and
your soft, tight belly.
My heart is taken by you
and these mornings since I am a horse running towards
a cracked sky where there are countless dawns
breaking simultaneously.
There are two moons on the horizon
and for you
I have broken loose.


4.5/5

[Paula Mota · Rating 4 out of 5]

Edição portuguesa: “Ela tinha alguns cavalos”, editora Cutelo, Julho 2023

Os cavalos, como todos nós, podem transformar e ser transformados. Um cavalo pode ser uma risca de sol nascente, um corpo de areia, um momento de êxtase. Um cavalo pode ser isto tudo ao mesmo tempo. Ou talvez um cavalo não seja nada senão a imaginação do vento. Ou uma manada de cavalos a galopar de canção em canção possa tornar-se um livro de poesia.
- Introdução pela autora

Joy Harjo, pertencente à nação Creek, foi a 23ª Poeta Laureada dos Estados Unidos de 2019 a 2022, a primeira autora indígena a receber essa forma de consagração.

DEVOLVO-TE
Liberto-te, meu belo e terrível
Medo. Liberto-te. Foste o meu gémeo
amado e odiado, mas já não te conheço
como a mim mesma. Liberto-te com toda a
dor que sentiria na morte dos
meus filhos.

Deixaste de ser o meu sangue.

Devolvo-te aos soldados
que reduziram a minha casa a cinzas, decapitaram os meus filhos,
violaram e sodomizaram os meus irmãos e irmãs.
Devolvo-te àqueles que furtaram a
comida dos nossos pratos quando estávamos mortos de fome.

Liberto-te, medo, porque empunhas
estas cenas diante de mim e eu nasci
com olhos que nunca se fecham.
(…)

Joy Harjo pinta vastas paisagens, muito frequentemente povoadas de cavalos, e narra histórias de trauma e resistência do povo indígena, mas foca-se acima de tudo na universal condição feminina.

A MULHER PENDURADA NA JANELA DO DÉCIMO TERCEIRO ANDAR
(…)
E a mulher pendurada na janela do 13º andar
ouve outras vozes. Umas berram-lhe lá de baixo
que salte, seriam capazes de a empurrar. Outras gritam
baixinho dos passeios, encostam a si os filhos como flores
juntando-os com os braços. Seriam capazes de ajudar, como a si mesmas.
Porém, ela é a mulher pendurada na janela do 13º andar
e sabe que está suspensa pelos seus próprios dedos, pela
própria pele, pelo seu próprio fio de indecisão.
(…)
A mulher está pendurada na janela do 13º andar a chorar
a beleza perdida da sua própria vida. Vê o
Sol a declinar a ocidente, sobre a superfície parda de Chicago.
Julga lembrar-se de ouvir a sua própria vida
a desprender-se, ao cair da janela do 13º andar
na zona oriental de Chicago, ou a trepar até
ao alto para se reaver a si mesma.

Não tenho nenhuma ligação à Cutelo e, na verdade, até me irrita o facto de não abrirem registo dos livros aqui, no GR, mas é uma pequena editora que colmata por cá uma grande lacuna na publicação de poesia estrangeira de várias latitudes, a preços acessíveis, e esta edição em particular, traduzida por Vasco Gato, parece-me irrepreensível.

[Stephen Page · Rating 5 out of 5]

Friday afternoon. I take a taxi to the Buenos Aires Airpark. On my flight to Uruguay I read She Had Some Horses, by Jay Harjo. The poems seem somehow familiar, something . . . I am trying to put my finger on it . . . yes . . . they remind me of poems I have read in workshops at university—there is nothing technically wrong with them, but there is nothing outstanding about them either. They evoke some imagery, but little emotion. My friend meets me at the airport and drives me to his home. That evening, after eating grilled lamb on a patio in back of his house, I gaze over what he calls a “backyard”, which is a hundred acres of rolling land surrounded by barbwire fence with a small herd of horses that graze on the grass. Once in a while one of the horses will take off running, and two or three will follow its lead, running, jumping in the air, kicking their hooves about, neighing like they are laughing, manes and tails flowing. Running about, it seems, just to run about—to have fun—to be happy to be alive. I note how gracefully horses move. How proud they stand when they stick their heads up from grazing to look about. That night, I read the book again. I begin to notice a subtle tugging from the poems, an evasive yet imperative beckoning. The next morning, I read the book a third time. The poems stun me. Each one dazzles me, has my full attention—like the way I notice a woman is beautiful and interesting in a way I did not on a first meeting with her, but upon a second and third encounter, moves me, enters me, will not leave me. One of the better poems in the book is ‘The Woman Hanging From the Thirteenth Floor Window’:



She is the woman hanging from the 13th floor


window. Her hands are pressed white against the


concrete molding of the tenement building. She


hangs from the 13th floor window in east Chicago.


with a swirl of birds over her head. They could


be a halo, or a storm of glass waiting to crush her . . .


The woman hanging from the 13th floor window


on the east side of Chicago is not alone.


She is a woman of children, of the baby, Carlos,


and of Margaret, and of Jimmy who is the oldest.


She is her mother's daughter and her father's son.


She is several pieces between the two husbands


she has had. She is all the women of the apartment


building who stand watching her, watching themselves. . .


She is the woman hanging from the 13th floor window


on the Indian side of town. Her belly is soft from


her children's births, her worn Levi's swing down below


her waist, and then her feet, and then her heart.


She is dangling.


The woman hanging from the 13th floor hears voices.


They come to her in the night when the lights have gone


dim. Sometimes they are little cats mewing and scratching


at the door, sometimes they are her grandmother's voice,


and sometimes they are gigantic men of light whispering


to her to get up, to get up, to get up. That's when she wants


to have another child to hold onto in the night, to be able to fall back into dreams.


And the woman hanging from the 13th floor window


hears other voices. Some of them scream out from below


for her to jump, they would push her over. Others cry softly


from the sidewalks, pull their children up like flowers and gather


them into their arms. They would help her, like themselves.


But she is the woman hanging from the 13th floor window,


and she knows she is hanging by her own fingers, her


own skin, her own thread of indecision . . .


The woman hangs from the thirteenth floor window crying for


the lost beauty of her own life. She sees the


sun falling west over the gray plane of Chicago.


She think she remembers listening to her own life


break loose, as she falls from the 13th floor


window on the east side of Chicago, or as she


climbs back up to claim herself again.


The image of the woman hanging by her fingertips on the window ledge is vivid. She is depicted metaphorically as EveryIndianWoman, but she could just as easily be EveryWoman, the poem is written that well. Every reader feels empathy with The Women, as do the spectators on the street below. Thusly, EveryOne is up on the ledge with The Woman, right beside her, or as her. The poem begins tragically but ends victoriously. There is hope to escape the fall from the ledge in the sense of self-reclamation. After all, hasn’t everyone been hanging from a ledge at least once in his or her life—at least some sort of a metaphoric ledge?
The rest of the poems are just as vivid as they are emotional.

As Published on Fox Chase Review

[Christine · Rating 5 out of 5]

I cannot stress how beautiful these poems are.

[Natalie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have no business reading poetry that goes beyond Shel Silverstein because I have a hard time "getting it." When I would read it to myself, it was like reading a foreign language. Words that went in one ear and out the other for the most part - read but not truly comprehended. I assure you that this is no fault of Joy Harjo's. I am just an amateur.

I can only tell you how beautiful the poems were when I began walking around my house and reading them out loud. I can only gush about the word choice and admit that I cried and cried while reading The Woman Hanging From The Thirteenth Floor Window.

I am a poetry novice and even though I don't always know what is going on and even though I may be relating lines or whole poems to something so much more trivial than what the poet is writing about, even I know something beautiful when I see it.

[Alarie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This year (2019), Joy Harjo became the first Native American Poet Laureate of the United States. I'm delighted about that. This book was published in 1983, and I look forward to reading some of her more recent books, since most good poets keep getting better over time.

I enjoy learning more about indigenous culture and beliefs. While not a huge fan of nature walk poems, I very much love poems about animals. In other words, there was a lot to enjoy in this collection. For me, the most poignant poem was about the plight of a woman in a tenement in east Chicago, the Indian section. Harjo made it a point to place it on page 13: "The Woman Hanging from the Thirteenth Floor Window." "She is all the women of the apartment / building who stand watching her, watching themselves."

The protagonist is repeatedly referred to as "the woman hanging from the thirteenth floor window." The repetition works for several reasons. It echoes the never-ending trials of the woman's life and makes readers, new onlookers, feel that we must also be losing strength to hold on much longer.
This stanza took my breath away (what breath I had left when I reached it):

"She thinks of Carlos, of Margaret, of Jimmy.
She thinks of her father, and of her mother.
She thinks of all the women she has been, of all
the men. She thinks of the color of her skin, and
of Chicago streets, and of waterfalls and pines.
She thinks of moonlight nights, and of cool spring storms.
Her mind clatters like neon and northside bars.
She thinks of the 4 a.m. lonelinesses that have folded
her up like death, discordant, without logical and
beautiful conclusion. Her teeth break off at the edges.
She would speak...."

Usually I lose my patience with this much repetition, but I thought it perfect in this poem.

My quote of the week came from “Remember”: “Remember you are all people and all people are you.” This wisdom is stated in different ways in different cultures, from “do unto others…” to the African proverb “I am because we are” and greeting “I am we.” There’s the secret to world peace,
to look for what we have in common and live like we care for those beyond our front door or border. Although egos continue to live by “me first,” poets have yet to give up the ideal.

[shelby · Rating 4 out of 5]

My favorite poem in this collection is “Two Horses.” <3

I thought my dance alone through worlds of
odd and eccentric planets that no one else knew
would sustain me

[Jessaka · Rating 3 out of 5]

Joy Harjo is a Native American poet from Tulsa, OK who has won many awards for her poems.

My friend loaned me this book, and this is her favorite poem of Harjo's, and I really liked it myself.

Remember

Remember the sky that you were born under,
know each of the star's stories.
Remember the moon, know who she is. I met her
in a bar once in Iowa City.
Remember the sun's birth at dawn, that is the
strongest point of time. Remember sundown
and the giving away to night.
Remember your birth, how your mother struggled
to give you form and breath. You are evidence of
her life, and her mother's, and hers.
Remember your father. He is your life also.
Remember the earth whose skin you are:
red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth
brown earth, we are earth.
Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their
tribes, their families, their histories, too. Talk to them,
listen to them. They are alive poems.
Remember the wind. Remember her voice. She knows the
origin of this universe. I heard her singing Kiowa war
dance songs at the corner of Fourth and Central once.
Remember that you are all people and that all people are you.
Remember that you are this universe and that this universe is you.
Remember that all is in motion, is growing, is you.
Remember that language comes from this.
Remember the dance that language is, that life is.
Remember.

[Lauren · Rating 5 out of 5]

And we go on, keep giving birth and watch
ourselves die, over and over.
And the ground spinning beneath us goes on talking.

From For Alva Benson, And For Those Who Have Learned To Speak

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

She Had Some Horses by Joy Harjo


This book of poems was published in 2008. There were three poems that I especially liked and were less spiritual than the others.

1. Anchorage - this poem about Harjo's time spent in this city rings true. Perhaps the most observational and least allegorical poem in the book.

2. The Woman Hanging from the Thirteenth Floor Window - a beautiful poem about a dark topic.

3. New Orleans - my favorite poem. It ties together De Soto's fatal search for a lost city of gold and the author's Creek heritage.

My experience with award winning poets that are not usually found on my shelf - like Harjo - is that you'll find some poems that resonate and maybe a few that are near perfect. That was the case here.

4 stars

[Megan Moir · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful collection of poetry. I feel like Joy Harjo doesn’t try to censor herself or present herself as someone she is not. She offers a different, grittier woman’s perspective that isn’t afraid to talk about the dark places. What I love about this poetry is that you can feel the flow, the stream of consciousness that strings words together to make an abstract thought come into focus. Harjo writes about women and what it feels to be connected to a greater feminine entity, something old and sacred. She also writes about coming to terms with all of the parts of ones self especially well. My favorite poem in this collection bears the same name as the book’s title “She Had Some Horses.” Anyone who knows horses, knows they all have unique individual personalities. Some even have “personality flaws” depending on the beholder. Anyone who knows horses also knows how strong they are, how powerful. You can’t ignore their presence when you encounter one. As a horsewoman, this poem speaks to me. I love the connection drawn between women and horses, it is deep and true. We are all ugly and beautiful, strong and vulnerable. We all have some horses.

She had some horses.
She had horses who were bodies of sand.
She had horses who were maps drawn of blood.
She had horses who were skins of ocean water.
She had horses who were the blue air of sky.
She had horses who were fur and teeth.
She had horses who were clay and would break.
She had horses who were splintered red cliff.

She had some horses.

She had horses with eyes of trains.
She had horses with full, brown thighs.
She had horses who laughed too much.
She had horses who threw rocks at glass houses.
She had horses who licked razor blades.

She had some horses.

She had horses who danced in their mothers' arms.
She had horses who thought they were the sun and their
bodies shone and burned like stars.
She had horses who waltzed nightly on the moon.
She had horses who were much too shy, and kept quiet
in stalls of their own making.

She had some horses.

She had horses who liked Creek Stomp Dance songs.
She had horses who cried in their beer.
She had horses who spit at male queens who made
them afraid of themselves.
She had horses who said they weren't afraid.
She had horses who lied.
She had horses who told the truth, who were stripped
bare of their tongues.

She had some horses.

She had horses who called themselves, "horse."
She had horses who called themselves, "spirit," and kept
their voices secret and to themselves.
She had horses who had no names.
She had horses who had books of names.

She had some horses.

She had horses who whispered in the dark, who were afraid to speak.
She had horses who screamed out of fear of the silence, who
carried knives to protect themselves from ghosts.
She had horses who waited for destruction.
She had horses who waited for resurrection.

She had some horses.

She had horses who got down on their knees for any saviour.
She had horses who thought their high price had saved them.
She had horses who tried to save her, who climbed in her
bed at night and prayed as they raped her.

She had some horses.

She had some horses she loved.
She had some horses she hated.

These were the same horses.

[Brea · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Remember your birth, how your mother struggled
to give you form and breath. You are evidence of
her life, and her mother’s, and hers.”

I liked it. I am in no place to write something beautiful about this book bc I cannot say anything to capture all of the ways this book made me cry.

[David G · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great collection....bleak,explorative...a beautiful Native road to the artistry of our nations Poet Laureate.

[theresa · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The poem I just wrote is not real.
And neither is the black horse
who is grazing on my belly.
And neither are the ghosts
of old lovers who smile at me
from the jukebox."

[Margaret · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a really gritty and profound collection of poems about fear and being an indigenous woman.

[Izzy Manson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful poems :’) :’(

[Erin Street · Rating 4 out of 5]

“I take myself back, fear. You are not my shadow any longer. I won’t hold you in my hands…but come here, fear…I am alive and you are so afraid of dying.”

[Nadine in NY Jones · Rating 2 out of 5]

These poems didn't work for me, I never quite knew what Harjo was saying. Poems have to connect to the reader in some way, right? That's what people mean when they say that something "speaks" to them. These poems didn't speak to me. They came so close, but not there. It's like I could see them speaking in another room to another person, but I couldn't understand the words.

Im sure these poems speak quite perfectly for others.

Alive

The hum of the car
is deadening.
It could sing me
to sleep.

I like to be sung to:
deep-throated music
of the south, horse songs,
of the bare feet sound
of my son walking in his sleep.

Or wheels turning,
spinning
spinning.

Sometimes I am afraid
of the sound
of soundlessness.
Like driving away from you
as you watched me wordlessly
from your sunglasses.
Your face opened up then,
a dark fevered bird.
And dived into me.
No sound of water
but the deep, vibrating
echo
of motion.

“I tried every escape,”
you told me. “Beer and wine
never worked. Then I decided
to look around, see
what was there. And I saw myself
naked. And alive. Would you
believe that?
Alive.”

Alive. This music rocks
me. I drive the interstate,
watch faces come and go on either
side. I am free to be sung to;
I am free to sing. This woman
can cross any line.

[Cheryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a singular American voice, and in her poetry, a kaleidoscope of meaning and reckoning and revelling. I am nearly always looking for a new way to look at time when I read poetry; I think time is one of our biggest brainwashings in our cultures and societies, so other ways of thinking and feeling it is my personal philosopher’s stone. (I also started her autobiography Crazy Brave, which also crosses all of time’s boundaries.) Time winds around the earth and spirits and deep despairs in these poems, and always brings it to an earthy or sensual dimension, and I loved them. I am also thrilled that she is our first Native American poet laureate while also deeply, achingly, ashamedly aware how desperately wrong that is. And ultimately, as other poets have said, poetry helps us reconcile contradictions like that, and these poems are perfect examples, the juxtaposition of heartbreak and glaciers making a whole or trees and prayers, for stars and identity, or landscape external and in a body. Read and rethink everything, and revel in our land and our planet while knowing the legacy of our theft reverberates in everything:


This city is made of stone, of blood, and fish.           There are Chugatch Mountains to the east           and whale and seal to the west.           It hasn’t always been this way, because glaciers           who are ice ghosts create oceans, carve earth           and shape this city here, by the sound.           They swim backwards in time.

the bones that cracked in your heart each time           you missed the aboriginal music that you were


The cedar tree outside the window                                                                    is one                                                                              of many.           What prayers are said to it?           What voices are raised                                               to sacred blue sky                          within its branches?                    Stars                            illuminate its form. The moon comes around           in a repetitious pattern,                                               and the sun           slopes down into a familiar sea.

She thought she woke up.           Black willow shadows for walls           of her room. Was it sleep?           Or the star-dancer come for her dance?           There are stars who have names, who are           dreams. There are stars who have families           who are music. She thought she woke up.           Felt for skin, for alive and breathing blood           rhythm. For clothes or an earring she forgot to           take off.

I dreamed of a Canadian plain, and warm arms around me,           the soft skin of the body’s landscape. And I dreamed           of bear, and a thousand mile escape homeward.

I am memory alive                                         not just a name
but an intricate part           of this web of motion,           meaning: earth, sky, stars circling           my heart                           centrifugal.

Remember the sky that you were born under,           know each of the star’s stories.           Remember the moon, know who she is.           Remember the sun’s birth at dawn, that is the           strongest point of time. Remember sundown           and the giving away to night.
Remember the earth whose skin you are:           red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth           brown earth, we are earth.           Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their           tribes, their families, their histories, too. Talk to them,           listen to them. They are alive poems.           Remember the wind. Remember her voice. She knows the           origin of this universe.           Remember you are all people and all people           are you.           Remember you are this universe and this           universe is you.           Remember all is in motion, is growing, is you.           Remember language comes from this.
Remember the dance language is, that life is.           Remember.

Your face tilted a soft angle                                                   to the light.                                                                     Even in           your sleep you sense direction.                     Your eyes are closed to the brightness                                   but you breathe in sun                       like sunflowers do.           (The sense of light is like another               kind of touch,                             like air and water to the skin.)


I thought my dance alone through worlds of           odd and eccentric planets that no one else knew                  would sustain me. I mean                                                        I did learn to move                                                                                       after all               and how to recognize voices other than the most familiar.                    But you must have grown out of                                                                     a thousand years dreaming                       just like I could never imagine you.                                You must have                                                  broke open from another sky           to here, because                                      now I see you as a part of the millions of               other universes that I thought could never occur                  in this breathing.                                              And I know you as myself, traveling.               In your eyes alone are many colonies of stars                                                                     and other circling planet motion.                                                 

[Bethany T · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautiful collection of poetry. It was so flowing and ethereal and musical. It provided a great window into Native American identity. Some of it is so personal though that I did find it difficult to connect (e.g., the poems that directly mentioned certain people or places). The third section, which shared its name with the book's title, was by far my favorite. There's a lot of sadness in the poems, but it was just so moving.

Verdict
If you like poetry and haven't read anything by this award-winning poet, you need to. This collection was a comforting and touching read.

[Josette · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a classic, of course, and very influential in helping me write my first collection. I recently taught this book at the Tohono O'odham Nation and the distracted or stoic students snapped to attention when I began to read the title poem. Who wouldn't? The tenor of their poems (they're writing to submit to a collection of native poems) was very similar in content and image. It was lovely to read something to them that struck a chord.

[Anne · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read for school. Idk. It's poetry. Would personally have preferred real horses to metaphorical horses. *shrug*

[Emma Harding · Rating 3 out of 5]

After hearing her speak live and in person, I was prepared for the poetry to speak of spiritual connection. To a degree, it does so through narratives that connect the speaker with their environment, the personification of the moon and its drunken love, and the oh so many horses that make an appearance in this collection. In fact, one of my favorite poems from this collection, "The Woman Hanging From the Thirteenth Floor Window," deployed repution to highlight the themes of motherhood and depression while reminding the reader the situation the woman is in. This presses the reader to understand the most pressing matter is everything to the speaker, thus dampening her spirit and making her wonder if she should climb up or let go.
However, due to the abstract nature and complexity of some of the poems, like "Song for Thantog," I struggled to read through the collection without a headache. While this poem follows the idea that poetry can transform and be transformed by the reader, I would have preferred a little more grounding in the situation with context.

[Colleen Villasenor · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a small collection of poems with horses as metaphors tying them together. The poems speak of survival, heartache, despair, displacement and finally overcoming fear. They speak of love and loss, all connected with the image of horses, horses of spirit, of blood, of rock, and of rainbows. I can't claim to understand all of these poems completely. I have not lived the experiences that produced them. But there is a beauty and a universal emotion that can speak to anyone. One of my favorite poems was "Remember" which begins, "Remember the sky you were born under..." I also was moved by the poem "Anchorage", especially the last lines that say, "..who would believe the fantastic and terrible story of all of our survival those who were never meant to survive." The book ends with the poem "I Give You Back" which talks about releasing fear. I found this poem to be very moving. I'm sure that reading these poems at another point in my life, I would relate to them in still a different way because that is the nature of poetry

[Carol · Rating 4 out of 5]

This poetry collection was such a nice surprise. Definitely out of my comfort zone, I would never have picked this up by myself, but it was the selection for my book club and I’m very happy they picked this one. It’s simple, sometimes to the point, talks about issues women deal with, family, love, nostalgia, and there’s a lot of power and taking back control of your own life in most of them. What I liked most is that sometimes they felt like songs more than terribly complicated poems with incomprehensible metaphors, so they were nice.
I have many favourites, more than I thought I’d like when I first started reading the book. They go very fast, is a light read, and it was interesting to see some elements of Muscogee imbedded in them. I knew Joy Harjo was a Native American author when I started the book, which was the main reason I was interested to be honest, but I didn’t know she was a musician as well, so I guess that explains the musical sensation I felt.

[kell_xavi · Rating 4 out of 5]

“She Had Some Horses” is an enigmatic and beautiful poem, and this is a moving and nourishing collection. Harjo approaches motherhood, heartbreak, hometowns, poverty, desires for love and death, the moon, bars and horses. Companionship, shared history in the bones: And even if I weren’t closer/ to the cliff edge of the talking/ wire, I would still be another mirror,/ another running horse (Drowning Horses).

There are so many stories in the details, and I’m grateful to have spent time near them.

The moon came up white, and torn/ at the
edges (Backwards).

My favourites:

Call It Fear
Anchorage
Backwards
The Woman Hanging From the Thirteenth Floor Window
Skeleton of Winter
Kansas City
Heartbeat
Nandia
Late Summer Leaving
She Had Some Horses - the entire section

…we exist/ not in words, but in the motion/ set off by them … (Motion).

[Shivanee Ramlochan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like Jacklight, She Had Some Horses was written and published before I was born. I find myself turning to the early collections of powerful, dangerous women, almost for a kind of fecund, uncivil reassurance: that long before I was a smear of grease, women have been doing this work: that they will be doing it long after I am a trace of ash.

Harjo's poems are bountiful, bursting with galloping horses, fat stars, "a woman as gold as the river bottom", memories swimming deep in the blood. I come here to drink from a low, wide trough: the water of these poems is experience, is (re)birth, is a full, sonorous canter.

[Charlotte Herie · Rating 4 out of 5]

It took me a while to fully get into this poetry book but once I did, I couldn't put it down. I think it was because most of the poems that I really enjoyed were towards the end of the book. What struck me the most about Joy Harjo's poems in this book was the way she talked about pain. It felt like she told the feeling of pain in such a raw and sad way which I really appreciated as it was so real. She contrasted that realness with words and poems that also talked about strength and overcoming of pain. The balance was beautiful and I found myself tearing up over some of the poems. I highly recommend this poetry book to anyone who wants to get real about their pain (past or present) as well as understand that pain is not forever and that it will always pass.

[Morgan Mollen]

Joy Harjo you are a wonder. Every time I read a poem I think that it can’t get more beautiful than this and then I turn the page and wow wow wow. Thank you for introducing me Noni Daylight and her spirit and her horses. And for allowing me to think of my own. Thank you for putting harsh feelings into intentional verses. And for using words unbiased and without connotation. Life is for good and hurt and heart and even fear. It’s pretty special to read a book and want to remember every page.