National Domestic Violence Awareness Project

profeminist:

“Joy Harjo was named the 23rd national Poet Laureate by the Library of Congress this week, making history as the first Native American to be selected for the post.

Harjo, who grew up in Oklahoma and is an enrolled member of the Muscogee Creek Nation, has incorporated Native American imagery and history into her work since she began writing in 1973, and has published seven books of poetry, two children’s books and a memoir.

“She tells an American story of tradition and loss, reckoning and myth-making,” Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden said in a statement following the announcement. “Her work powerfully connects us to the earth and the spiritual world with direct, inventive lyricism that helps us reimagine who we are.”

Harjo is the recipient of a National Endowment of the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Her poetry collection In Mad Love and War won an American Book Award, her poetry collection The Woman Who Fell From the Sky won an Oklahoma Book Arts Award and her memoir, Crazy Brave, won a PEN USA Literary Award. Before assuming her role as Poet Laureate in September, she will publish a new poetry collection called An American Sunrise.

Read the full piece here