Monday, May 20, 2013

Monday Muse: Joy Harjo Performs 'Eagle Song'

Joy Harjo, a member of the Mvskoke (Creek) Nation, is a poet, memoirist, playwright, nonfiction writer, and musician. Harjo has written numerous collections of poetry, including She Had Some Horses: Poems (W.W. Norton, 2008), How We Became Human: New and Selected Poems 1975-2001 (W.W. Norton, 2002; paper 2004), A Map to the Next World: Poems and Tales (W.W. Norton, 2001), The Woman Who Fell from The Sky: Poems (W.W. Norton, 1996),  and In Mad Love and War (Wesleyan Poetry Series, 1990). Her recent memoir is Crazy Brave (W.W. Norton, 2012). 

In addition to being honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native Writers Circle of the Americas, Harjo is the recipient of a Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Writer's Award, a New Mexico Governor's Award for Excellence in the Arts, and the William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America.

In the music video below, which combines archival footage and contemporary scenes, Harjo recites her famous "Eagle Poem" and performs a solo on her saxophone. Directed and produced by Native Hawaiian filmmaker Lurline Wailana McGregor, the video was nominated for a prize at the Native American Indian Film and Video Festival in 2002; it has been screened nationally and internationally at film festivals around the world.


To see more of Harjo's work in theatre, film, and video, go here.



2 comments:

Kathleen said...

Oh, you are such a great resource for cool info!

Louise Gallagher said...

How beautiful! and I agree with Kathleen