Well, thank you so much, Jennifer.
That was really beautiful, not only to hear your poem,
but then also to hear the other poems that you
selected and the reasons why.
And connecting that to this idea of belonging and not belonging.
So thank you for that.
It was beautiful.
Thank you.
OK, I'm now going to introduce with honor Joy Harjo.
Joy Harjo's nine books of poetry include An American Sunrise,
Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings, How We Became Human:
New and Selected Poems, and She Had Some Horses.
Harjo's memoir, Crazy Brave, won several awards,
including the PEN USA Literary Award for Creative Nonfiction
and the American Book Award.
She co-edited two anthologies of contemporary Native women's
writing, When The Light Of The World
Was Subdued Our Songs Came Through
and Reinventing The Enemy's Language:
Native Women's Writing Of North America, one of the London
Observer's best books of 1997.
She is the recipient of the Ruth Lilly prize from the Poetry
Foundation for Lifetime Achievement, the 2015 Wallace
Stevens Award from the Academy of American Poets
for proven mastery in the art of poetry, a Guggenheim
Fellowship, the William Carlos Williams
Award from the Poetry Society of America,
and the United States Artists fellowship.
In 2014 she was inducted into the Oklahoma Writers
Hall of Fame.
A renowned musician, Harjo performs
with her saxophone nationally and internationally,
solo and with her band The Aerodynamics.
She has five award winning CDs of music,
including the award winning album "Red Dreams,"
"A Trail Beyond Tears," and "Winding Through The Milky
Way," which won a Native American Music
Award for Best Female artist of the year in 2009.
Harjo's latest is a book of poetry from Norton,
"An American Sunrise."
In 2019, Joy Harjo was appointed at 23rd United States poet
laureate, the very first Native American to hold the position.
She lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Thank you, Joy, for being with us here today.
And it is beyond an honor to introduce you here in our forum
today.
Thank you.