Joy Harjo is first Native American named U.S. poet laureate

“This country is in need of deep healing. We’re in a transformational moment in national history and Earth history, so whichever way we move is going to absolutely define us”

Joy Harjo, the first Native American to be named U.S. poet laureate, has been ready for a long time.

“I’ve been an unofficial poetry ambassador on the road for poetry for years,” the 68-year-old Ms. Harjo wrote in a recent email to . “I’ve often been the only poet or Native poet-person that many have seen/met/heard. I’ve introduced many poetry audiences to Native poetry and audiences not expecting poetry to be poetry.”

“I don’t have a defined project right now, but I want to bring the contribution of poetry of the tribal nations to the forefront and include it in the discussion of poetry,” says Ms. Harjo, an enrolled member of the Muscogee Creek Nation and a native of Tulsa, Oklahoma. “This country is in need of deep healing. We’re in a transformational moment in national history and Earth history, so whichever way we move is going to absolutely define us.”

She is known for such collections as The Woman Who Fell From the Sky and In Mad Love and War and for a forceful, intimate style that draws upon the natural and spiritual world. Her previous honours include the PEN Open Book Award and the Wallace Stevens Award for lifetime achievement. Earlier this year, she was awarded the Jackson Prize, given by Poets & Writers, for a poet of merit who deserves more attention. “But then, you take a breath, all the way from the centre of the Earth and blow. All that heartache is forgiven.”

The poet laureate is not a political position. Ms. Harjo makes clear her disdain for many office seekers, however, in her poem For Those Who Would Govern. She also has expressed her views on President Trump. In 2016, she linked to a Newsweek article about then-candidate Mr. Trump’s overseas business connections and tweeted, “Donald Trump’s foreign ties may conflict with U.S. national security interests.” Last summer, she linked to a New York magazine article about Mr. Trump and Russia, and tweeted: “What If Trump Has Been a Russian Asset Since 1987?”

The head of the Library of Congress’ poetry and literature centre, Robert Casper, told the AP that laureates are encouraged to focus on “poems and the way they work”, including politically. During her interview, Ms. Harjo declined to talk about Mr. Trump directly, and said instead that “everything is political”.

“I began writing poetry because I didn’t hear Native women’s voices in the discussions of policy, of how we were going to move forward in a way that is respectful and honours those basic human laws that are common to all people, like treating all life respectfully, honouring your ancestors, this Earth,” she said.

She cites her poem Rabbit is Up To Tricks as an expression of political thought, but in a timeless way. Her poem tells of a trickster Rabbit who has become lonely, and so forms a man out of clay and teaches him to steal. The clay man learns too well, stealing animals, food and another man’s wife. He will move on to gold and land and control of the world.

And Rabbit had no place to play.

Rabbit’s trick had backfired.

Rabbit tried to call the clay man back,

but when the clay man wouldn’t listen

Rabbit realized he’d made a clay man with no ears.

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