"When the Light of the World was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through"

At this time of disorder, discomfort and disconnection in the middle of the raging pandemic in our world, we search for life lines to hold onto, to keep us together. Poetry, music and art can be those lifelines. The stories handed down by voice or writing from our relatives, ancestors and elders weave the patterns of design and color that make each of us who we are. These stories of courage, perseverance, and love of family, community and Mother Earth weave together the strong and enduring tapestry that makes up our life.  But with the gifts of all that is good come also the pains of our past--our ancestral trauma that we carry with us from wherever we have come from. When we attempt to understand our heritage and the many strands of historical experiences of those who have come before us, and embrace the determination necessary to keep moving forward, new windows will open into understanding ourselves.   

In this post I want to address an extraordinary woman of courage and commitment, Joy Harjo. Joy is a woman known around the world as a writer, poet, musician and author. In her memoir, Crazy Brave (W.W. Norton 2013), Harjo tells the story of growing up in Oklahoma; her mother was from the Cherokee Nation and her father was from the Muscogee Creek Nation in Eastern Oklahoma. She writes that, within the year of her mother and father meeting, “I was born to earth, of water and fire.  Because I came through them in this life, I would be quick to despair, and understand how to enter and emerge from ancestor realms. I had no way to translate the journey and what I would find there until I found poetry.” Reading Harjo’s memoir, I am reminded of the power of stories, poetry and song to be our guides--our lifelines--to the source of who we are. 

In 2019, Joy Harjo was nominated to be the 23rd Poet Laureate of the United States, and has recently been appointed her second term in this position. The Library of Congress defines the role of the Poet Laureate as serving as the official poet of the United States, tasked to “raise the national consciousness to a greater appreciation of the reading and writing of poetry.”  But Joy Harjo, as the first Native American to be appointed U.S. Poet Laureate, brings more to her role: she seeks to raise the national consciousness, too, to the visibility and persistence of Native peoples and Native Nations of this country. On her role as Poet Laureate, she said in an interview with the TODAY show in October 2019, “What an opportunity, a doorway for Native people, we’ve been so disappeared in the story of American poetry, American history, yet we are the root of what it means to be an American.” Harjo reminds us that the roots of this country are Native people, and we are--our stories are-- essential to our collective vision of how to heal and move forward as a Nation.

Since Joy first started writing and performing, she has been an advocate and activist for the rights and visibility of Native people and communities. Now, in this position, her influence can have an even broader reach. What is most powerful about Joy’s work as a poet, is that her writing always holds a teaching. Whether she is bringing to light the too-long suppressed history of Mvskoke and Southeastern peoples as a central part of our US story, as she does in her latest book of poetry, American Sunrise, or is bravely confronting her personal story of abuse and loss, as she does in her memoir, Crazy Brave, in a way that empowers her readers towards their own healing—Joy’s writings and music aspire to healing and reconciliation—to help us all, and our fraught and diverse histories, understand each other.

Joy Harjo is a citizen of the Muscogee Creek Nation, and lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma.  My great grandmother, Rachel Perryman, written about in the first post on this blog, and my two daughters and I are members of the Muscogee Creek Nation as well. I wanted to write this week about Joy Harjo as a way to celebrate our Mvskoke (Muscogee Creek) people and the Supreme Court ruling to uphold the treaty signed in 1866 between the Muscogee Creek Nation and the United States government. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in support of the 1866 treaty, “Because Congress has not said otherwise, we hold the government to its word.”  Gorsuch went on to say “On the far end of the Trail of Tears was a promise. Forced to leave their ancestral lands in Georgia and Alabama, the Creek Nation received assurances that their new lands in the West would be secure forever. In exchange for ceding ‘all their land, east of the Mississippi River,’ the U.S. government agreed by treaty that ‘the Creek country west of the Mississippi shall be solemnly guaranteed to the Creek Indians.’” As we know, however, the U.S, government did not keep their word, continuing to strip away Muscogee citizens of their legal and humanitarian rights and to work to deny the Muscogee Nation of its sovereignty. This Supreme Court ruling, however, marks a significant moment of reckoning: in the words of Justice Gorsuch that solidified the ruling, “Unlawful acts, performed long enough and with sufficient vigor, are never enough to amend the law.” The federal government’s original promise that the Creek Nation reservation would be secured a reservation in Eastern Oklahoma lands in perpetuity is at last officially acknowledged and affirmed. This is a complicated and too often misunderstood case but many have recently written and spoken in solidarity and clarity. Sarah Deer, a Muscogee Creek citizen, tribal legal scholar, MacArthur Fellow, and professor at the University of Kansas, has offered an eloquent and illuminating discussion about the history and implications of this Supreme Court ruling, which I encourage everyone to listen to on NPR’s Democracy Now! episode from July 10:  Click here for the episode: “Most Important Indian Law Case in Half a Century”: Supreme Court Upholds Tribal Sovereignty in OK 

Joy Harjo, too, has written and spoken on behalf of this important moment, which is a landmark decision for tribal sovereignty and personal, cultural healing: Click here to read Joy Harjo’s piece in the NY Times from July 14, 2020, “After a Trail of Tears, Justice for Indian Country.” 

I encourage you to explore Joy’s writing and music; her website, www.joyharjo.com, offers a range of articles, interviews, and podcasts that can introduce you to her powerful teachings, insights, and generous creativity, as well as containing links to her albums and books. We are eagerly awaiting, too, the release of the first historically comprehensive anthology of poetry by Native peoples, edited by Joy Harjo (with the authors LeAnne Howe and my daughter, Jennifer Foerster, as Associate Editors): When the Light of the World was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through. Joy writes in the book’s introduction, “This anthology . . . is a way to pass on the poetry that has emerged from rich traditions of the very diverse cultures of indigenous peoples from these indigenous lands, to share it.” Joy Harjo’s work as a poet, artist, and teacher is the work of a generous, courageous heart. She reminds us of the power of words and our messages to change the narrative of this country’s history--that we are capable and responsible for this awakening, and we can do this in peace, in a way that heals and does not perpetuate that same systems of power, violence and abuse that have threatened to destroy us. Her work is an affirmation that poetry, art, music, and story have a purpose now more vital than ever: to open people’s hearts to everyone’s own humanity.

In closing with the words captured in the NY Times article by Joy Harjo, through the teachings of the elders and ancestors, it may take seven generations for justice to finally be achieved.  Though I have never heard the voice of my great grandmother, Rachel Perryman, I hear and feel her spirit coming through Joy Harjo’s writing.  

In gratitude,
MVTO