WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.570 align:middle line:90% 00:00:00.570 --> 00:00:03.270 align:middle line:84% I'm going to accidentally quote the president. 00:00:03.270 --> 00:00:04.788 align:middle line:90% Wow. 00:00:04.788 --> 00:00:06.660 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:00:06.660 --> 00:00:10.880 align:middle line:90% 00:00:10.880 --> 00:00:12.620 align:middle line:90% I'm Cynthia Hogue. 00:00:12.620 --> 00:00:18.530 align:middle line:84% I'm the Marshall Chair in poetry for another month at ASU, 00:00:18.530 --> 00:00:23.480 align:middle line:84% after which I will remain a poet, I trust. 00:00:23.480 --> 00:00:27.440 align:middle line:90% Thanks to the amazing Natalie. 00:00:27.440 --> 00:00:32.240 align:middle line:84% Thanks to Tyler realizing that she's a visionary. 00:00:32.240 --> 00:00:36.110 align:middle line:84% Thanks to everyone who came here, 00:00:36.110 --> 00:00:45.890 align:middle line:84% who gathered to celebrate three magnificent poets and friends. 00:00:45.890 --> 00:00:49.970 align:middle line:90% Let me repeat, wow. 00:00:49.970 --> 00:00:55.020 align:middle line:84% My heart is filled with joy looking out at you. 00:00:55.020 --> 00:00:59.510 align:middle line:84% This is an awesome celebratory and magnificent moment 00:00:59.510 --> 00:01:04.240 align:middle line:84% and a historic evening in Phoenix of all places. 00:01:04.240 --> 00:01:07.330 align:middle line:90% 00:01:07.330 --> 00:01:11.500 align:middle line:84% Author of 15 collections of poetry and prose 00:01:11.500 --> 00:01:16.330 align:middle line:84% and four award-winning music albums, Joy Harjo 00:01:16.330 --> 00:01:19.210 align:middle line:84% is a member of the Muskogee Nation. 00:01:19.210 --> 00:01:23.470 align:middle line:84% A writer, poet, musician, teacher, feminist, 00:01:23.470 --> 00:01:28.600 align:middle line:84% and activist, though not necessarily in that order. 00:01:28.600 --> 00:01:32.140 align:middle line:84% Recognized early on as a poet to watch, 00:01:32.140 --> 00:01:35.590 align:middle line:84% she has now begun to be honored in ways 00:01:35.590 --> 00:01:38.470 align:middle line:84% commensurate with her achievements, 00:01:38.470 --> 00:01:43.030 align:middle line:84% her stellar career capped by receiving the Wallace Stevens 00:01:43.030 --> 00:01:47.860 align:middle line:84% Award from the Academy of American Poets in 2015 00:01:47.860 --> 00:01:54.040 align:middle line:84% and in 2017 by receiving the Ruth Lilly prize in poetry 00:01:54.040 --> 00:01:57.010 align:middle line:84% from the Poetry Foundation, to name 00:01:57.010 --> 00:02:00.550 align:middle line:90% but two of her many honors. 00:02:00.550 --> 00:02:04.040 align:middle line:84% For me, there is a sense of sheer joy-- 00:02:04.040 --> 00:02:08.139 align:middle line:90% I'm sorry, Joy, the pun. 00:02:08.139 --> 00:02:10.840 align:middle line:90% Can't resist. 00:02:10.840 --> 00:02:17.830 align:middle line:84% I've taught Joy Harjo's poetry and also Rita's for 30 years. 00:02:17.830 --> 00:02:21.430 align:middle line:84% And in reading Joy's work closely with students 00:02:21.430 --> 00:02:25.630 align:middle line:84% of poetry, always powerful, even magical, 00:02:25.630 --> 00:02:31.030 align:middle line:84% filled with unexpected insight and understanding. 00:02:31.030 --> 00:02:35.020 align:middle line:84% I want to give you one brief example from the last class I 00:02:35.020 --> 00:02:37.870 align:middle line:90% taught this fall. 00:02:37.870 --> 00:02:43.630 align:middle line:84% In the middle of the Joy Harjo group oral report, 00:02:43.630 --> 00:02:47.470 align:middle line:84% one student in the group, Raquel Denis, 00:02:47.470 --> 00:02:50.800 align:middle line:84% suddenly lifted her head from the page and exclaimed 00:02:50.800 --> 00:02:54.610 align:middle line:84% of Joy's most recent collection, Conflict Resolution with Holy 00:02:54.610 --> 00:02:59.380 align:middle line:84% Beings, "this book is a book of wisdom 00:02:59.380 --> 00:03:03.940 align:middle line:90% and Joy Harjo is a wise woman." 00:03:03.940 --> 00:03:09.100 align:middle line:84% I was so touched because, coincidentally, 00:03:09.100 --> 00:03:13.270 align:middle line:84% having lived with the book for the last six months off and on, 00:03:13.270 --> 00:03:16.780 align:middle line:84% I had had the same exact realization 00:03:16.780 --> 00:03:21.400 align:middle line:84% as I reread the counsel housed in the title poem 00:03:21.400 --> 00:03:23.710 align:middle line:90% as I prepared for class. 00:03:23.710 --> 00:03:27.340 align:middle line:84% Quote, "by listening, we will understand 00:03:27.340 --> 00:03:30.700 align:middle line:84% who we are in this holy realm of words. 00:03:30.700 --> 00:03:34.120 align:middle line:84% Do not parade pleased with yourself. 00:03:34.120 --> 00:03:38.500 align:middle line:84% You must speak in the language of justice." 00:03:38.500 --> 00:03:44.530 align:middle line:84% For Harjo, language is the key to social transformation, 00:03:44.530 --> 00:03:47.020 align:middle line:90% but it's complicated. 00:03:47.020 --> 00:03:51.400 align:middle line:84% As postcolonial scholar, Jonathan Monroe, has put it, 00:03:51.400 --> 00:03:56.890 align:middle line:84% Harjo is a speaker of the truth of Indigenous peoples, a poet 00:03:56.890 --> 00:04:02.410 align:middle line:84% and seer who urges us to live in relation to the web of life, 00:04:02.410 --> 00:04:05.890 align:middle line:84% to the Earth, and to each other, preserving 00:04:05.890 --> 00:04:10.060 align:middle line:84% what is a value at the shores of all knowledge. 00:04:10.060 --> 00:04:13.780 align:middle line:84% As Harjo writes in The Woman Who Fell From the Sky, 00:04:13.780 --> 00:04:17.740 align:middle line:84% we gather up these strands, broken from the web of life. 00:04:17.740 --> 00:04:20.200 align:middle line:84% We call them the names of our relatives 00:04:20.200 --> 00:04:24.730 align:middle line:84% and carry them to our home, made of the four directions 00:04:24.730 --> 00:04:26.770 align:middle line:90% and we sing. 00:04:26.770 --> 00:04:31.540 align:middle line:84% One speaker's spirit in conflict resolution inveighs, quote, 00:04:31.540 --> 00:04:36.430 align:middle line:84% "you can change the story that the politically imposed trade 00:04:36.430 --> 00:04:42.100 align:middle line:84% language, English, has told of the native peoples." 00:04:42.100 --> 00:04:46.930 align:middle line:84% Joy Harjo's true-speaking poetry has 00:04:46.930 --> 00:04:52.840 align:middle line:84% done just that, infused English with a changed story. 00:04:52.840 --> 00:04:56.500 align:middle line:84% And we all are changed by her work. 00:04:56.500 --> 00:04:59.680 align:middle line:84% Please join me in welcoming Joy Harjo. 00:04:59.680 --> 00:05:01.530 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE]