Joy Harjo Quotes

No. I was not okay.
And neither was James Baldwin though his essays
Were perfect spinning platters of comprehension of the fight
To assert humanness in a black and white world.

I began choking and kicking, fighting for air. My spirit helper spoke precisely: ‘If you fight water, you drown

I feel a thick cord. It connects my spirits to a memory that I have tried to forget. I have pretended it wasn't there, and I drank or even smoked my way around it when I was younger. Then I buried the memory under accomplishment. My story is stalled here, as if the cord has choked off the rest of the story and I cannot move forward. As the story maker, I have to find a way. First, I need to speak and remember what I do not want to remember. Even now, years later, when my mother is gone, even the monster is gone, I have come to understand they do not want the haunting either. They want to move on.

In 1990 a congress of indigenous peoples met outside of Quito, Ecuador, to discuss the Columbian Quincentenary, a celebration by immigrant populations of the arrival of Christopher Columbus to the western hemisphere on his financed expedition to find a trade route to India. Tribal people came from all of the Americas and met to discuss the destructive and monumental changes since this European explorer’s arrival. We met together to gain insight and strength and ponder how we would continue to move forward past the massive destruction and disrespect of the earth mind, body and spirit, and to continue our sovereignty as Native nations. In the women’s circle, a striking Bolivian Indian woman in a bowler hat stood up. She welcomed us, and noted that she was surprised at all of the Natives attending from the United States. “We thought John Wayne had killed all of you.” (This was not a joke.)

America has always been multicultural, before the term became ubiquitous, before colonization, and it will be after.

I was born with eyes that can never close...

I sit up in the dark drenched in longing. / I am carrying over a thousand names for blue that I didn’t have at dusk.

Put down that bag of potato chips, that white bread, that bottle of pop.

Turn off that cellphone, computer, and remote control.

Open the door, then close it behind you.

Take a breath offered by friendly winds. They travel the earth gathering essences of plants to clean.

Give it back with gratitude.

When Sun leaves at dusk, it makes a doorway. We have access to ancestors, to eternity. Breathe out. Ask for forgiveness. Let all hurts and failures go. Let them go.

The pervasive rhythm
of her mother’s heartbeat is a ghostly track
that follows her.

European and American settlers soon took over the lands that were established for settlement of eastern tribes in what became known as Indian Territory. The Christian god gave them authority. Yet everyone wanted the same thing: land, peace, a place to make a home, cook, fall in love, make children and music. (p19)

I think it’s easier to honor the male in our culture because it’s much more accepted. There are almost no truly powerful and sustained images of female power. None. Look at Marilyn Monroe? The Virgin Mary? And what images exist for Indian women? The big question is, How do we describe ourselves as women in this culture? It’s unclear.

A poem can be like a pocket that can hold anything, almost anything. You can hold different kinds of time. It can hold grief, it can hold history, and it is often — a poem has come to me or through me, and it’s taught me what I needed to know.

What I Should Have Said

There's nothing that says you can't
call. I spend the weekdays teaching
and moving my children from breakfast
to bedtime. What else, I feel like a traitor
telling someone else things I can't tell
to you. What is it that keeps us together?
Fingertip to fingertip, from Santa Fe
to Albuquerque?
I feel bloated with what I should say
and what I don't. We drift and drift, with
few storms of heat inbetween the motions.
I love you. The words confuse me.
Maybe they have become a cushion
keeping us in azure sky and in flight
not there, not here.
We are horses knocked out with tranquilizers
sucked into a deep deep sleeping for the comfort
and anesthesia death. We are caught between
clouds and wet earth
and there is no motion
either way
no life
to speak of.

We will keep going despite dark
Or a madman in a white house dream.