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Native Americans and the National Consciousness: Virtual Reading and Conversation with Joy Harjo

A woman with dark hair wearing a red top and long beaded earrings.
Courtesy of Blue Flower Arts. © Matika Wilbur.

Lecture

A recording of the lecture is available for in-person viewing at the Harvard Library Woodberry Poetry Room, https://library.harvard.edu/libraries/poetryroom.

The Harvard University Native American Program and the Harvard Art Museums present a reading and conversation with Joy Harjo, the 23rd poet laureate of the United States.

Harjo is an internationally renowned performer and writer, who is a member of the Mvskoke Nation and belongs to Oce Vpofv (Hickory Ground). The author of nine books of poetry, several plays and children’s books, and a memoir (Crazy Brave), she has received many honors, including the Ruth Lilly Prize for Lifetime Achievement from the Poetry Foundation, the Wallace Stevens Award from the Academy of American Poets, a PEN USA Literary Award, the Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Fund Writers’ Award, a Rasmuson U.S. Artists Fellowship, two NEA fellowships, and a Guggenheim fellowship. Harjo is chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and a founding board member of the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation. She is executive editor of the anthology When the Light of the World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through: A Norton Anthology of Native Nations Poetry, released in 2020. She lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where she is a Tulsa Artist Fellow.

Speakers:
Joy Harjo, 23rd Poet Laureate of the United States
Joseph P. Gone, Faculty Director of the Harvard University Native American Program and Professor of Anthropology and of Global Health and Social Medicine
Elizabeth Solomon, Director of Administration in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Robin Kelsey, Dean of Arts and Humanities and Shirley Carter Burden Professor of Photography
Philip Deloria, Leverett Saltonstall Professor of History

This program will take place online via Zoom. Free admission, but registration is required. To register, please complete this online form.

You will receive an email confirming your registration along with a Zoom link and password for the program. If you have any questions, please contact am_register@harvard.edu.

For instructions on how to join a meeting in Zoom, please click here.

This program is presented by the Harvard University Native American Program with generous support from a private donor gift. Please visit www.hunap.harvard.edu for a full list of co-sponsors.

Selected books by Joy Harjo are available for purchase through the Harvard Book Store.

The Harvard Art Museums are committed to accessibility for all visitors. For anyone requiring accessibility accommodations for our programs, please contact us at am_register@harvard.edu at least 48 hours in advance.