Joy Harjo
Bill Long 3/10/05
Singing the Cycles of Life
The Native American (Muskogee tribe) poet and singer Joy Harjo visited Willamette University tonight. In the space of one hour she worked her way into our hearts with her melodious poems and songs of mythic past and vivid present. She told us how her poems emerged from life experience--from the frightening drama of being held up at gunpoint in Los Angeles to the joyous occasion of her granddaughter's 14th birthday. Her reflections on "seeing grace" in Iowa City, when the sun finally peeked through the clouds after a month of winter gloom while she was eating restaurant breakfast of coffee and pancakes were both exhilarating and funny. More than anything, however, Joy Harjo is a woman whose works are characterized by memory, a sense of the connectedness of all things, and an undying hope that often seems to belie the historical experience of Native American people.
Memory
Joy Harjo memorized her poetry and recited it from the heart. She not only labored over the words in writing but had internalized them, squeezing every ounce of nectar from their sweet and stinging realities. She recited the poem "For A Girl Becoming a Woman," posted on her Weblog of 2/19/05, commemorating her granddaughter's 14th birthday. But, rather than speaking of the girl at age 14, it goes back to the past. It celebrates "that day your spirit came to us." It was a day when "rains came in from the Pacific to bless." It was a time when "pollen blew throughout that desert house to bless us." Harjo thinks of the two families that bequeathed their gifts to 14 year-old Krista Rae Chico. From the mother's side came "poetry, music, medicine makers, stubbornness..." From the father's house came "educators, thinkers, dreamers, weavers and mathematical genius." But not only did the two families from her past 'create' her. The "relatives in that beloved place" (another world) "dressed you in black hair, brown eyes, skin the color of earth..." Memory so fills Joy's consciousness that it is almost more real than the girl who celebrates her 14th birthday. But then the exhorations appear on how to live and what to do. Yet even in those exhortations are the encouragements to cultivate memory: "Remember the source of the gift of all laughter, of all crying, of all thinking...dreaming...heart broken. Memory is a precious gift that defines the contours of life today.
Connection to All Things
Memory defines life in the context of the connectedness of humans to each other and to all living things. This notion appears strongly in her poem "Emergence." The "skinny" light of a midsummer's night, skirted by human desire; the bark of dogs as they perceive the musky scent of other dogs. These slices of life illumine the human experience of "lingering at the edge of a broken heart, striking relentlessly against the flint of hard will." Rather than coming together, things seem to be coming apart. The heart is so small when focused on small things, but "it is large when embracing the maker of walking, thinking and flying." She will try to "locate the point of dawning and awaken with the longest day in the world."
In her conversational remarks, woven between songs and poems, she spoke eloquently about the "precious stew" of spirit and flesh as they mingled on the earth with others. It is because of this powerful commitment to community that the experience of being assaulted created such difficult images in one poem read to us--that "humans were created by mistake." Even the pleasant good wishes of a friend to the passing strangers could not prevent them from acting toward Joy and her firend "as if we were no longer human." The absence of community in violence is mute testimony to the need to recognize our interdependence with others and with the earth.
Singing and Speaking Hope
But if there is one word that truly characterizes her work, it is "hope." She knows deeply the stories of her people, and has experienced the shame and bitterness of that experience. Yet, she truly believes that the world is recreated each day. 'Every moment is a new beginning,' she told us. Because the world began at a kitchen table, it will continue to be formed at that same table. And, as a new life is brought into the world, and as the old man dies, it is as if nature is "rearranging earth," or shuffling the playing cards of life, to continue with the endless story of the griefs and loves of life. But make no mistake about it. Love is the most powerful force in the world. Love that says "you are one of us." Love that gives a drink of water to all who need it. Love that brings us a child who grows to be a 14 year-old young woman.
Conclusion
Ultimately, then, Joy Harjo sings and tells us the cycle of life. We have a deep past, but are created each day. We live our individual lives, sometimes in one-room apartments, but are connected to the whole fabric of life, human and inanimate. And then, grace breaks in, whether in the stories of our people, the loving of our children or even eating pancakes and drinking coffee at a restaurant in Iowa City.
The gift of life seemed a bit more precious after spending an evening with Joy Harjo.
Copyright © 2004-2007 William R. Long |