A Reading by U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo

Wed, March 30, 2022
7:00 PM
Greenville, NC
East Carolina University NEA Big Read
Main Campus Student Center, Black Box Theatre, #200A


"A Reading by U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo"

You are invited to “A Reading by U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo.” Harjo will perform a reading and participate in a Q&A, followed immediately by a book signing.

This event is contingent on ECU’s Public Health Plan and is subject to change.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 30 AT 7:00PM to 8:30PM

Main Campus Student Center, Black Box Theatre, #200A
501 E. 10th St., Greenville, NC 27858

In 2019, Joy Harjo, a citizen of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, was appointed the 23rd United States Poet Laureate — the first Native American to hold the position and only the second person to serve three terms in the role. Harjo’s nine books of poetry include An American Sunrise, Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings, How We Became Human: New and Selected Poems, and She Had Some Horses. She is also the author of two memoirs, Crazy Brave and Poet Warrior, which invites us to travel along the heartaches, losses, and humble realizations of her "poet-warrior" road.

Her many writing awards include the 2019 Jackson Prize from the Poetry Society of America, the Ruth Lilly Prize from the Poetry Foundation, the 2015 Wallace Stevens Award from the Academy of American Poets, and the William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America. She is a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, Board of Directors Chair of the Native Arts & Cultures Foundation and holds a Tulsa Artist Fellowship. A renowned musician, Harjo performs with her saxophone nationally and internationally; her most recent album is I Pray for My Enemies. She lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

This event is the culmination in a group of events funded by ECU's National Endowment for the Arts Big Read grant, awarded to Dr. Marianne Montgomery, associate professor and chair of the Department of English, and is co-sponsored by The Thomas Harriot College of Art and Sciences Whichard Distinguished Professor in the Humanities, held by Native American literature specialist Dr. Kirstin L. Squint. The Whichard Professorship is hosted by the Department of English and the program in Gender Studies.

For additional information about Harjo, visit https://blueflowerarts.com/artist/joy-harjo/.

For additional information about ECU's NEA Big Read grant, visit https://news.ecu.edu/2021/06/09/ecu-receives-a-national-endowment-for-the-arts-big-read-grant/.


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