Joy Harjo
Hawai’i Book and Music Festival
Photo of Joy Harjo by Karen Kuehn
Joy Harjo is the 23rd Poet Laureate of the United States, and a world-renowned performer and writer of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation. She is the author of plays, children’s books, two memoirs, and nine books of poetry—among them the anthologies When the Light of the World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through and Living Nations, Living Words. As a musician, she has produced seven award-winning albums. She received the Ruth Lilly Prize for Lifetime Achievement from the Poetry Foundation, Guggenheim and NEA fellowships, and the Academy of American Poets Wallace Stevens Award. She is a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and the Chair of the Native Arts & Cultures Foundation. She lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where she is a Tulsa Artist Fellow.