An Evening with Joy Harjo

Joy Harjo is an internationally known poet, writer, and performer of the Mvskoke Creek nation. Her work has won many awards including the 2015 Wallace Stevens Award from the Academy of American Poets and the William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America, among many others.

Harjo has written eight books of poetry, including How We Became Human: New and Selected Poems, and She Had Some Horses. Her recent collection, Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings (W.W. Norton, 2015), was shortlisted for the 2016 Griffin Poetry Prize and added to ALA's 2016 Notable Books List. Harjo's memoir Crazy Brave (W.W. Norton, 2012) won several awards including the PEN USA Literary Award for Creative Non-Fiction and the American Book Award.

Joy Harjo is also a renowned musician. She plays her saxophone internationally, both solo and with her bands Arrow Dynamics and Poetic Justice, and has set her poetry to music in melodic spoken-word form. She has five CDs of music and poetry including the award-winning album, Red Dreams, A Trail Beyond Tears. Her album, Winding Through the Milky Way won a Native American Music Award (NAMMY) for Best Female Artist of the Year in 2009. Paul Winter, Grammy award winning saxophonist, has hailed Harjo as "a poet of music just as she is a poet of words."

This lecture is presented by Native American Studies in the Department of American Culture, with support from IRWG.

For more information, contact Scott Lyons, Director of Native American Studies at U-M.

Robert F. Berkhofer, Jr. (1931-2012) was an historian and a leading scholar in the field of Native American Studies. The author of many influential books, including The White Man's Indian: Images of the American Indian from Columbus to the Present (1978), Berkhofer taught at Michiganfrom 1973-1991. This annual lecture on Native American Studies honors his work and legacy.