Joy Harjo

Joy Harjo
200px Harjo in 2012
Born	May 9, 1951 Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA
Occupation	Author, poet, performer, educator
Nationality	Mvskoke and American
Genre	Poetry, non-fiction, fiction
Literary movement	Native American Renaissance

Joy Harjo (born May 9, 1951) is a Mvskoke poet, musician, and author. She is often cited as playing a formidable role in the second wave of what critic Kenneth Lincoln termed the Native American Renaissance of the late 20th century. She is the author of such books as Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings (2015), Crazy Brave (2012), and How We Became Humans: New and Selected Poems 1975 - 2002 (2004).

Life

Joy Harjo was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1951 and is a member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, with partial Cherokee descent. She is a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa.

Known primarily as a poet, Harjo has also taught at the college level, played alto saxophone with the band Poetic Justice, edited literary journals, and written screenplays.

In 1995, Harjo received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native Writers' Circle of the Americas.

In 2002, Harjo received the PEN Open Book Award, formerly known as the Beyond Margins Award for A Map to the Next World: Poetry and Tales. In 2008, she served as a founding member of the Board of Directors for the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation, for which she currently serves as a member of its National Advisory Council.

Harjo joined the faculty of the American Indian Studies Program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in January 2013.

Awards

1970s

• 1st and 2nd Place Awards in Drawing, University of New Mexico Kiva Club Nizhoni Days Art Show (1976)
• Writers Forum at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, Colorado (1977)
• Outstanding Young Women of America (1978)
• National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowships (1978)

1980s

• 1st Place in Poetry in the Santa Fe Festival of the Arts (1980)
• Outstanding Young Women of America (1984)
• New Mexico Music Awards (1987)
• NEH Summer Stipend in American Indian Literature and Verbal Arts, University of Arizona (1987)
• Arizona Commission on the Arts Poetry Fellowship (1989)

1990s

• The American Indian Distinguished Achievement in the Arts Award (1990)
• Delmore Schwartz Memorial Award, New York University: In Mad Love and War (1991)
• Oakland PEN, Josephine Miles Poetry Award (1991)
• William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America (1991)
• American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation: In Mad Love and War (1991)
• Honorary Doctorate from Benedictine College (1992)
• Woodrow Wilson Fellowship at Green Mountain College in Poultney, Vermont (1993)
• Witter Bynner Poetry Fellowship (1994)
• Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native Writers Circle of The Americas (1995)
• Oklahoma Book Award: The Woman Who Fell from the Sky (1995)
• Bravo Award from the Albuquerque Arts Alliance (1996)
• Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers Musical Artist of the Year: Poetic Justice (1997)
• New Mexico Governor's Award for Excellence in the Arts (1997)
• Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund Writer's Award for work with nonprofit group Atlatl in bringing literary resources to Native American communities (1998)
• Finalist for the Oklahoma Book Award: Reinventing the Enemy's Language (1998)
• National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowships (1998)

2000s

• Writer of the Year/children's books by the Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers for The Good Luck Cat (2001)
• Oklahoma Book Award for Poetry How We Became Human: New and Selected Poems 1975-2001 (2003)
• Arrell Gibson Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Oklahoma Center How We Became Human: New and Selected Poems 1975-2001 (2003)
• Storyteller of the Year Native Joy for Real by the Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers. (2004)
• Writer of the Year - Poetry How We Became Human: New and Selected Poems 1975-2001 (2004)
• Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers "Writer of the Year" for the script A Thousand Roads (2005)
• United States Artists Rasmuson Fellows Award (2008)
• Eagle Spirit Achievement Award (2009)
• Nammy Native American Music Award (2009)
• Mvskoke Women's Leadership Award (2011)
• John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship (2014)

Others

• University of New Mexico Academy of American Poets Award.
• Mountains and Plains Booksellers Award
• Featured in Pushcart Prize Poetry Anthologies XV & XIII

Works

Bibliography

Poetry

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• ; W. W. Norton & Company, 2008, ISBN 978-0393334210.
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As editor

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Non-fiction

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Children's literature

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Discography

Joy Harjo

• Native Joy for Real (2004)
• She Had Some Horses (2006)
• Winding Through the Milky Way (2008)
• Red Dreams: A Trail Beyond Tears (2010)

"Crossing the Border"

Joy Harjo and Poetic Justice

• Letter From the End of the Twentieth Century (1997)

See also

• List of writers from peoples indigenous to the Americas
• Native American Studies

External links

• Official website
• Works by or about Joy Harjo in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Joy Harjo, Author - Poet - Musician
• VG biography
• Write TV Public Television Interview with Joy Harjo
• Audio: Joy Harjo reads She Had Some Horses
• Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture - Harjo, Joy
• Joy Harjo at Library of Congress Authorities, with 21 catalog records