Joy Harjo (b 1951), Mvskoke (Creek) Poet, Musician, author and key player in the second wave of the Native American literary efflorescence
Crazy Brave(Norton & Company, 2012), Joy Harjo’s eminently engaging memoir, flows like a long prose poem. It is rich and well-built on a foundation of tribal mythologies, a strong sense of her ancestry, her difficult childhood and youth and salvation found in poetry and music. From her birth to a handsome much-loved fire-spirit father who inherited Indian oil money, allowing him to indulge a passion for cars, and her beautiful water-spirit singer-mother whose voice was stilled by a bully of a second-husband, Harjo tells the story of girl who survived a physically and emotionally abusive step-father, crushing poverty and the greater cultural obscenities to become one of our most influential poets and a formidable advocate for justice for Native Americans and liberation for women.
I was entrusted with carrying voices, songs, and stories to grow and release into the world, to be of assistance and inspiration. These were my responsibility.”
*****
I can’t imagine the human being who wouldn’t relate to Joy Harjo’s history, but those who have come from “broken” homes, poverty and a family of mixed ethnicity will most especially appreciate it and perhaps find some healing and strength in the pages of Crazy Brave. That Joy Harjo survived so much to become a decent loving person leaves the rest of us with no excuse; and any writer, poet or musician will take to heart the dreams and visions of that long journey to find hope and creative voice in poetry.
Joy Harjo, a member of the Mvskoke tribe was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, an area where the Native American trail of tears ended, an area to which the indigenous peoples were removed – forced to relocate – as people of European descent moved into their original home places. The removed were the Five Civilized Tribes – Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Mvkoke and Seminole – who were living as autonomous nations in what is now the American Deep South.
“I fought through the War Between the States and have seen many men shot, but the Cherokee Removal was the cruelest work I ever knew”. Georgian soldier who participated in the removal
*****
When the World as We Knew It Ended
It was coming.
We had been watching since the eve of the missionaries in their long
and solemn clothes, to see what would happen.
We saw it
from the kitchen window over the sink
as we made coffee, cooked rice and potatoes
enough for an army.
We saw it all, as we changed diapers and fed
the babies. We saw it,
through the branches of the knowledgeable tree,
through the snags of stars, through
the sun and storms, from our knees
as we bathed and washed the floors …
The conference of the birds warned us as they flew over
destroyers in the harbor, parked there since the first takeover.
It was by their songs and talk we knew when to rise,
when to look out the window
Joy Harjo’s poetry and music are influenced by her ethnic heritage and her feminist and social concerns as well as by her love of word and sound and her education in the arts. Largely autobiographical, her poetry is informed with descriptions of the Southwestern landscape and the mythologies, symbols and values of the Mvskoke people. Hers is the sort of writing that sits with you to become part of your own bone and marrow, which is the way of good poetry and good story. A poet of the people but also a critically-acclaimed poet, her many awards include the Wallace Stevens Award of the Academy of American Poets, The William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America and the American Indian Distinguished Achiement in the Arts Award. She is the recipient of several grants and is a teacher, musician (saxophone) and singer. She has published some fourteen books and ten music albums.
It was a dance,
her back against the wall
at Carmen’s party. He was alone
and he called to her – come here, come here
that was the firs time she saw him
and later she and Carmen drove him home
and all the way he talked to the moon,
to the stars, to someone riding
Award Winning British Poet, Myra Schneider (b. 1936), Writer, Writing Coach, Consultant to Second Light Nework of Women Poets
This interview was first published on February 14, 2011, not long after I “met” Myra (Myra Schneider’s Poetry Website). I’m publishing it again in honor of Myra’s 80th birthday this month and because there is value in it. You can see that the career of a poet and writer must evolve like any other career. It takes time to be noticed by public and publishers, to find your voice, your subject, your niche and a way to promote your work with dignity. It is an evolution that requires self-awareness, patience and perseverance.
Myra and many of the other featured poets on this site make excellent – inspiring – role models. They also demonstrate that there is no waiting for outside validation. First you have to be “poet” or “writer” or the practicioner of whatever is your chosen art. The rest will follow, which doesn’t necessarily mean you will have a huge following and a best-selling collection. You will have a following though, people who support you and appreciate your work, share your values and your love of poetry.
Another more recent interview of Myra, A Life Immersed in Poetry, is HERE.
– Jamie Dedes
This is a tentative world. Ahead the ground
rises, unrolls slowly into distance. Grass
straggles from sparse clumps. The only sound
is silence. On trees thin as bird legs: a fuss
of feathers. Maybe the smudged chimney and roof
are figments of imagination. But the wall
has a solidity which would support grief,
guides the walker and her dog up the hill,
reaches beyond the point eyes can see
into the future’s opaque sky. The way
is planted with snares but they’ll plod to its end
and the dog will linger to sniff the moment’s petals,
the wall will shield the woman from the wind
as she hugs her thoughts, their jet darks, opals.
JAMIE: YOU STARTED OUT WRITING FICTION FOR CHILDREN AND YOUNG ADULTS AND THEN MOVED TO POETRY. WHAT INSPIRED THE TRANSITION AND WOULD YOU WRITE FICTION AGAIN?
MYRA: My first published work was fiction for children but the story of my writing life is quite complicated. During my teens and while I was at university I was sure I wanted to be a poet. When I left college – we’re talking about a long time ago 1959/60 – there were not the workshops and openings which we now have in the UK. I was invited to join a group of well-known poets but what they were writing didn’t seem to connect with the poetry I loved from the past and the 20th century. Their poems struck me as pretentious and I felt like a fish out of water. As I found almost nothing to counterbalance this I soon stopped writing poetry and for a few years wrote rather bad adult novels, none of them were published.
When my son was small he kept asking me to tell him stories and after writing down some of these I tried writing a full-length children’s novel. The third one, Marigold’s Monster, was accepted by a well-known publisher who later commissioned me to write two novels for teenagers. By this time I had started writing poems again and had one or two accepted in magazines. At the end of the 1970s there was a cut in library spending in the UK and because of this I didn’t receive a contract for a third novel which the publishers were interested in. I started writing a lot more poetry and after three years I was lucky enough to find a small press publisher. By the mid-1980s I knew that poetry was my real metier and I stopped writing fiction in prose.
What I retained though was a love of narrative and I have written a number of narrative poems. These range from poems of two or three pages to poems of thirty pages or more. Some deal with contemporary life both relationships and social issues and draw indirectly on my own experience. Examples of these are Voice Box in my book, Multiplying The Moon and Hotel in Circling The Core. Others draw on myths or known historical material and explore themes which interest me. The most recent of these is the The Minotaur which has just come out in the Long Poem Magazine. I have also written Becoming which is published as a short book by Second Light Publications. This draws on difficult personal material and presents it in a parallel situation. I love writing narrative poetry – it’s almost a different medium from lyrical poetry and it allows me to approach material in a very different way.
JAMIE: IT IS NOT WELL KNOW THAT THE GREAT AMERICAN NOVELIST, PEARL BUCK, WROTE POETRY AS WELL AS PROSE. A SMALL, ELEGANT COLLECTION OF HER POEMS WAS PUBLISHED POSTHUMOUSLY. ONE POEM CALL ESSENCE IS OF SPECIAL INTEREST:
I give you the books I’ve made,
Body and soul, bled and flayed.
Yet the essence they contain
In one poem is made plain,
In one poem is made clear:
On this earth, through far or near,
Without love there’s only fear.
– Pearl Buck
WOULD YOU SPEAK TO THAT PLEASE AND WRITE ABOUT WHAT YOU SEE AS THE ESSENCE OF POETRY?
MYRA: This spiritual poem is an expression of what Pearl Buck feels is at the heart of living and writing – love. Without it life would have no meaning, nothing to offset the negativity, dangers and fears of living. What I understand too is that in all else she has written, all she has given body and soul to, love is the essence. I’m glad she used the word essence because for me the poetry that really matters – both what I read and what I write – is spiritual poetry, poetry which searches below the surface for meanings . This is not say that I write or look for poetry which is very solemn or far removed from the everyday or humorless – rather that I want to explore what lies beneath the ordinary, what raises it, makes it not ordinary.
MYRA: We wrote the book because we believe that personal writing is very potent both for the writer and the reader, because some of the greatest literature is rooted in personal material. We both became aware years ago that many people feel a strong need to write about their lives and feelings and even when they go to writing workshops without recognising this need it is quickly apparent that it is the driving force behind what they write. What we think is key to the book is the range of personal subject matter which we have examined and the widely different approaches writers have used. We believe the firsthand accounts by a number of writers and also ourselves about how we tackled personal material make the book unique. It also mattered to us to include powerful writing by little-known and unknown writers as well as work by those with high reputations. The second part of the book offers many different techniques and suggestions for tackling personal experience. It also looks closely at the difference between raw and finished writing, the validity of each, and includes ideas for developing work.
JAMIE: WRITING YOUR SELF IS JUST WHAT IT SAYS AND PROMOTES POETRY WRITING AS A HEALING ACTIVITY. YET, READING POEMS IS HEALING AS WELL. ALTHOUGH MANY OF YOUR POEMS DO NOT SEEM PERSONAL, I SUSPECT THEY ARE AND THE SHARED EXPERIENCE IS HEALING FOR US. IT MAKES ME WONDER WHAT YOUR PRIMARY GOAL IS WHEN YOU WRITE. DO YOU WRITE FIRST FOR YOURSELF OR FIRST FOR YOUR READER?
MYRA: Yes, reading, writing and sharing poems is healing and if one is to be fully involved in writing it is crucial to read poetry and read poems closely. Circling The Core, my most recent poetry collection includes a poem about very painful personal material, Room, but it has fewer directly personal poems than my earlier books. I have in fact written many personal poems, in particular about my difficult relationship with each of my parents and my experience of breast cancer. I also write many poems which I consider personal, or partly personal, about my response to situations, other people, my inner self and how I connect with the outer world. Writing, in fact, helps me make sense of my life, of the world we live in. I write poetry above all else because I feel compelled to write. If I didn’t write something central would be missing from my life. Communication with others, however, is very important to me so although I write out of my own need the reader and what he/she will receive is always in my mind as I develop my initial ideas.
I wish I wasn’t putting such a strain on Erwin. I am afraid the breast cancer nurse, who is coming again tomorrow, will give me more information that will worry me. I have to hang onto the thought of friends and the relatives and friends of people I know who have survived for years and years after breast cancer. I owe it to myself to manage my panic and to make this a life experience not a death experience, to concentrate on possibilities, to grab every moment of life I can, to use what has happened for writing, to include the awfulnesses but also the plusses. I mustn’t forget the moments of joy: the sun lying in swathes on the grass, the sharp clean cut of the air, the disc of the sun on water. I must keep the words that came into my head about the snowdrops I saw in a garden when we walked to the shops a couple of hours ago. I think it’s the starting point of a poem.” From Myra’s cancer notebook.
JAMIE: PAIN OFTEN MAKES US FEEL LIKE ISOLATING AND YET WE CREATE SOME FINE ART OUT OF THAT PAIN. IT’S HARD TO REMAIN ISOLATED WHEN YOU WRITE. YOU ARE REVEALED AND YOU TOUCH AND ARE TOUCHED. IS THAT – THE CONNECTION WITH OTHERS – PART OF THE HEALING PROCESS OF POETRY WRITING OR SIMPLY INCIDENTAL TO IT?
MYRA: Yes, for me, and I think most other people, making connection with others when one writes out of pain or distress, is part of the healing process. I was particularly aware of this when I was being treated for breast cancer. Being weak and having to spend much of my time at home and do very little work for several months made me feel cut off from life but writing my journal and, even more importantly, poems during those months supported me in a way which I found absolutely amazing even though I had always believed writing was therapeutic. While I was writing I felt l was my whole self and not my ill self and also I felt connected with the outside world. The reason I turned my journal, poem notes and poems into a book, Writing My Way Through Cancer was because I wanted to share the possibilities writing can offer anyone in times of trauma and difficulty. For this reason I added a section of therapeutic writing ideas. In total I felt all the writing I did during the year I was being treated for cancer was a way of creating something positive out of a negative experience. This was very uplifting.
JAMIE: YOU SAID YOU “KNIT WORDS INTO POEMS.” THIS SEEMS ALMOST TO IMPLY STRUGGLE. DOES POETRY COME EASILY FOR YOU? ORGANICALLY? OR, IS IT A LABOR?
MYRA: Ah now, writing organically is absolutely crucial if one is produce authentic poetry. If the poem does not come from the centre of oneself, if one is not totally engaged it isn’t possible to write a real poem. Exciting seeds of poems present themselves, often insist on my attention but transforming these visions into poetry – that is work, hard work, at times a struggle. This does not mean to say that it is tedious, unwanted toil. For me it is a compulsion. If it becomes monotonous slog to develop or revise then something has been lost and it is best to leave the poem until the impulse to work returns or if necessary to abandon it altogether. I find the later ‘work’ stages of writing as totally involving as noting down those first images and ideas. The moment of discovering what direction the poem should take when I have been uncertain, finding the way to write a line which has eluded me, is always exciting. I don’t believe many poems find their final shape easily – so my answer is yes, ideas and parts of poems come easily and my writing is organic but it is also hard work, work which I am committed to.
JAMIE: I SEE THAT YOU TEACH AS WELL AS WRITE. DO YOU FEEL THAT TEACHING FEEDS THE CREATIVE MUSE OR IS IT A DISTRACTION? I GUESS WHAT I’M ASKING IS WHAT DO YOU GET BACK FROM TEACHING POETRY WRITING TO OTHERS AND IS THE REWARD NEARLY WHAT IT IS WHEN YOU WRITE?
MYRA: I love teaching. I run two regular monthly courses/ workshops for the Poetry School in London and also one-off workshops which I do for a range of organizations all over England and occasionally in other countries. A few of the one-off workshops are residential. It is very satisfying to open doors which help writers generate ideas, also to run groups where rigorous but supportive feedback is offered not only by me but everyone in the group. Some of the people I work with are very talented and I feel them to be colleagues rather than students. Discussion of their work or of the work of published writers with these groups is always illuminating and the contact with people committed to their work and interested in the writing process feeds my own work. When I set writing exercises in my workshops I always write too and sometimes this triggers a new poem for me so this is another bonus. I am a firm believer in writing courses and workshops. Of course not everyone is going to become a professional poet or writer but everyone can gain more satisfaction from reading and writing poetry, everyone can develop their skills.
You can visit Myra HERE. Myra’s Amazon U.S. Page HERE. Myra’s Amazon U.K. Page HERE.
This video version of Myra’s The Red Dress can’t be viewed from email. If you are reading this post in an email, you will have to come to the site.
“We wrote the book because we believe that personal writing is very potent both for the writer and the reader, because some of the greatest literature is rooted in personal material.” Myra Schneider in an interview with Jamie Dedes
It always seems to me that writing about life – “personal material” – is a healing activity, a way to live hugely, and a way to empower ourselves and others. Whether we do it for ourselves alone or whether our purpose is to leave history behind for family, to set the record straight, or simply to share and entertain, the experience is rewarding.
Part I: Here the focus is on life experiences, the exploration of those human experiences that are universal. These include childhood, self-concepts, relationships, displacement, physical and mental illness and disability, and abuse.
Part II: Here the focus is on writing techniques, recognizing material that is unfinished, working on refinements, and developing work projects.
Writing Your Self is rich with examples from unknown (students) and known writers including the authors. By example as well as explanation the authors reinforce what we intuitively understand to be true: that telling stories preserves identity and clarifies the human condition. It helps us understand what it means to be human. The experience of working through the book is rather like a rite of passage.
I can see the use of this book by individuals training themselves and by teachers of adult learners who wish to write memoir, poetry, fiction, or creative non-fiction. It would be useful in hospital therapeutic writing programs or in writing programs for active seniors.
Memories, both recent and distant, tell us who we are and so play a crucial role in our experience of life…
You may have memories which you want to plunge into or you may have material like a diary or letters which summon them up. There are other ways though of triggering memories. We offer a series of suggestions. Chapter 13, Accessing memories, secret letters, monologues and dialogues, visualizations.
Chapter 13 alone is worth the price of admission. I work a lot off of childhood memories and even the event that happened two minutes ago comes back to me with a dreamlike quality when I sit to write. I have not thought of the things I do naturally as triggers, but indeed they are. It was quite interesting to see these natural aids laid-out in the book: objects and place as starting points, physical sensation as triggers, people in memory and predominant feelings. The section on secret letters – that is, letters that you write someone and never send – was interesting. I’m sure it would make a fine jumping-off point for some. The authors go on to monologues and dialogues and visualization. We all do those things in our heads anyway. If you can see it or hear it in your mind, you can write it.
If you are inexperienced or stuck midway in a transition from one form of writing to another, you’ll benefit from the exercises, ideas, and instruction in Writing Your Self: Transforming Personal Experience. If you are a more experienced writer, you might find this book will stimulate the muse.This text is a definite thumbs-up.
Myra Schneider is a British poet, a poetry and writing tutor, and author of the acclaimed book: Writing My Way Through Cancer.
John Killick was a teacher for 30 years, in further, adult and prison education. He has written all his life. John Killick’s work includes both prose works and poetry.
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Victoria C. Slotto, the poet as captured in (c) photo by David Slotto
Plain as a needle a poem may be, or opulent as the shell of the channeled whelk, or the ace of the lily, it matters not; it is a ceremony of words, a story, a prayer, an invitation, a flow o words that reaches out and, hopefully, without being real in the way that the least incident is real, is able to stir in the reader a real response.” San Dabs, Seven from Winter Hours by Mary Oliver
Thus begins Victoria C. Slotto’s 2012 poetry collection, Jacaranda Rain, which she dedicated to Oliver “my mentor unaware.” Like Mary Oliver, nature is frequent inspiration for Victoria. The collection includes some fifty-five poems on nature, spirituality, death and dying, which are arranged rather charmingly in alpha order.
What haunts me,” said the dead man
to his wife whose ashes mingled with
his own, “are books I’ve never read –”
from About the Dead Man and Books
“What haunts me more,” the dead man said
for no one else to hear, “are books I never
wrote — ideas fanned to life by life …”
from More About the Dead Man and Books
Victoria certainly will have no such regrets. Since 2009 she’s been publishing her poetry on her blog (Victoria C. Slotto, Author; Fiction, Poetry, Essays). Her original intention in starting the blog was to promote her first novel, Winter Is Past, which was ultimately published by Lucky Bat Books in 2011.
Victoria is however a lover of poetry and was drawn to write and published more and more poetry – Lovely! – becoming involved in poetry groups. (We met via Jingle’s poetry group for those of you who have been around as long as we have and remember that dear lady.)
Victoria eventually became involved with dVerse ~ Poets Pub,“a place for poets and writers to gather to celebrate poetry. We are many voices, but one song. Our goal is to celebrate; poets, verse & the difference it can make in the world. To discover poetry’s many facets and revel in its beauty, even when ugly at times.” dVerse is a collaborative effort offering inspiration, encouragement and education. I highly recommend it, especially if you are just getting started online and want to make connections. Jacaranda Rain includes several poems that were part of an anthology published by dVerse (also recommended). Victoria was for a time a core-team member of The BeZinewhere she offered monthly prompts for poets and writers.
Victoria’s collection includes explanatory notes for some of the poems and these are engaging and not intrusive.
I dreamt
I flew among the stars
skirted between planets,
cracked open doors
to distant worlds
from Quantum Leaps in Jacaranda Rain
In all since 2009, Victoria has maintained a blog, been an inspiration to poets and a friend to many, written two novels (the second is The Sin of His Father) and a nonfiction book, Beating the Odds: Support for Persons with Early Stage Dementia. Victoria is a former registered nurse who worked primarily with the elderly. She writes from that experience and the more intimate experience of caring for her own mother. As her mother faced early stages of dementia, they worked together to devise practical steps to help her mom remain independent for as long as possible. Victoria offers memory prompts, health care considerations, ideas to help one find meaning in life, suggestions for preparing for the future and more in this very worthy book.
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Though I must leave you
I’ll come to you again
a shower of purple petals
on dew covered sod –
from the poem Jacaranda Rain in the collection
Jamie Dedes' THE POET BY DAY Webzine 