Books

Living Nations, Living Words

An Anthology of First Peoples Poetry

Collected and with an Introduction by Joy Harjo, 23rd U.S. Poet Laureate

NORTON Book Shot Living Nations Living Words HARJO 200821 copy

Joy Harjo, the first Native poet to serve as U.S. Poet Laureate, has championed the voices of Native peoples past and present. Her signature laureate project gathers the work of contemporary Native poets into a national, fully digital map of story, sound, and space, celebrating their vital and unequivocal contributions to American poetry.

This companion anthology features each poem and poet from the project to offer readers a chance to hold the wealth of poems in their hands. With work from Natalie Diaz, Ray Young Bear, Craig Santos Perez, Sherwin Bitsui, Layli Long Soldier, among others, Living Nations, Living Words showcases, as Joy Harjo writes in her stirring introduction, “poetry [that] emerges from the soul of a community, the heart and lands of the people. In this country, poetry is rooted in the more than 500 living indigenous nations. Living Nations, Living Words is a representative offering.”

March 21, 2023, Bmore Art
March 11, 2023, KERA-Think
A conversation with U.S. poet laureate Joy Harjo

As the first Native Amer­i­can to serve as U.S. Poet Lau­re­ate in 2019, Joy Har­jo has used her voice as a tool for cul­tur­al change. The mem­ber of the Musco­gee (Creek) Nation joins host Krys Boyd to dis­cuss how she…

March 07, 2023, Native News Online
Joy Harjo receives Harper Lee Award

The Harp­er Lee Award was named after the author of the clas­sic Amer­i­can nov­el To Kill a Mock­ing­bird. Read more here

March 07, 2023, The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, March 2023 issue
REMEMBER - Starred Review

Poet Lau­re­ate Joy Harjo’s 1983 tit­u­lar poem is paired with Calde­cott medal­ist Goade’s lush, jew­el-toned illus­tra­tions in this gor­geous pic­ture book, open­ing with an illu­mi­nat­ing invo­ca­tion: Remem­ber the sky that you were born under, know each…

February 14, 2023, Yale Library
Joy Harjo wins Yale’s 2023 Bollingen Prize for American Poetry

Joy Har­jo has been named the win­ner of Yale’s 2023 Bollin­gen Prize for Amer­i­can Poet­ry. The Bollin­gen Prize, estab­lished by Paul Mel­lon in 1949, is award­ed bien­ni­al­ly by Yale Uni­ver­si­ty Library through Bei­necke Rare Book and Manuscript…

February 05, 2023, National Catholic Reporter
Joy Harjo's poem 'Redbird Love' teaches us to watch closely, see clearly

The world and the us are joined, always, and with­out effort. To look close­ly at oth­ers is to watch our­selves close­ly, and what a gift it can be, offer­ing our attention.

February 02, 2023, The Washington Post
Percival Everett, Ling Ma among nominees for critics prizes - The Washington Post

For­mer U.S. poet lau­re­ate Joy Har­jo has won an hon­orary award for life­time achievement.

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