By Anabel Costa
She is a playwright, a musician, a painter, an author of 14 published books — and now the US Poet Laureate.
After hearing her accomplishments read in front of a crowd last week, Joy Harjo reminded her UC Santa Barbara audience that we are more than the sum of our accomplishments. “What’s not on there is all the times I failed — all the times I was turned down,” Harjo said.
From the moment she began to speak, the poet showed humility and poise and reminded us that no matter the path you take, there will always be bumps in the road.
Harjo was on campus to for a conversation with students of writing and literature, hosted by the College of Creative Studies. In June she became the first Native American to be named the U.S. Poet Laureate.
Harjo talked about what it means to be an artist, to be a minority, and to find one’s own path. She said she didn’t start writing to be “a voice for all native people.” She began writing for herself. Still, she was often put in a position to speak for her entire demographic group.
US Poet Laureate Joy Harjo, speaking to UCSB literature and writing students.
“I’ve been on panels where I’ve had to represent everybody,” she said. This creates pressure, and to deal with this pressure, she has sought out communities of other indigenous people, and anybody who has been “the only” in the room.
Finding one’s own path and community was a recurring theme during the event in the Little Old Theater. Harjo said she has never been conventional and she has had to find her own way of doing things, be it in poetry, plays, or memoirs.
“Whenever I write I don’t know exactly where I’m going, because if I did, it wouldn’t be interesting,” she said. Her poetry comes to her unplanned. Sometimes it comes to help her, and sometimes to help others. But whatever it is, she maintains a positive purpose. “There’s no reason to judge anyone,” said Harjo. “I’m not trying to bring more hurt into the world — I’m trying to bring understanding.”
She said connection to the self and to others comes with art. “Poetry grounds you,” said Harjo. “It makes you feel like you belong to the earth — belong to a family.” This belonging can empower, offering ownership of an identity that is often forgotten. “Most Americans think we’re not here anymore,” said Harjo of native people. “Or they think we’re stereotypes, or we’re less than human. But we are here. We are here and you cannot say we are not poets.”
Harjo, much like her poetry, is grounded in nature. She said she feels connected to nature, and believes we are drawn to art as humans. “We get glimpses of that larger sense,” she said.
The poet cited the instinctual feeling she experienced while giving birth to her first daughter, the feeling that her body was doing exactly what it was meant to do and that it knew exactly how. “We were all created by a source that loves us,” she said. “And it’s not bound by a religion.”
Anabel Costa is a third year Theater major. She is a Web and Social Media intern for the Division of Humanities and Fine Arts.