...it is what we are made of, the stories that we carry with us. Stories create us. We create ourselves with stories. Stories that our parents tell u… - Joy Harjo

I always play or perform music with my poetry. When poetry came into the world, it did not arrive by itself, but it came with music and dance.

FOR EARTH’S GRANDSONS Stand tall, no matter your height, how dark your skin Your spirit is all colors within You are made of the finest woven light From the iridescent love that formed your mothers, fathers Your grandparents all the way back on the spiral road — There is no end to this love It has formed your bodies Feeds your bright spirits And no matter what happens in these times of breaking — No matter dictators, the heartless, and liars No matter — you are born of those Who kept ceremonial embers burning in their hands All through the miles of relentless exile Those who sang the path through massacre All the way to sunrise You will make it through

Poetry is the art that is closest to music, standing between music and narrative orality (which can be speechmaking, sermon or theater). Poetry is the voice of what can’t be spoken, the mode of truth-telling when meaning needs to rise above or skim below everyday language in shapes not discernible by the ordinary mind. It trumps the rhetoric of politicians. Poetry is prophetic by nature and not bound by time. Because of these qualities poetry carries grief, heartache, ecstasy, celebration, despair, or searing truth more directly than any other literary art form. It is ceremonial in nature. Poetry is a tool for disruption and creation and is necessary for generations of humans to know who they are and who they are becoming in the wave map of history. Without poetry, we lose our way.