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Merwin Conservancy - Joy Harjo

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McCoy Studio Theater

I turn and return to Harjo’s poetry for her breathtaking complex witness and for her world-remaking language.” —Adrienne Rich
 
The Merwin Conservancy presents an intimate evening with current U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo in the Green Room, an arts and ecology salon series hosted by the Conservancy with a mission to foster a reverence for language, nature, and imagination. This event is part of a special “Memorial Series” of the Green Room, held in honor of the organization’s founder, the late W.S. Merwin.
 
Harjo is the first Native American to be named U.S. Poet Laureate. Of Harjo, Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden said, “To her, poems are 'carriers of dreams, knowledge and wisdom,' and through them, she tells an American story of tradition and loss, reckoning and myth-making.
 
Her work powerfully connects us to the earth and the spiritual world with direct, inventive lyricism that helps us reimagine who we are."
 
The presentation will be followed by a book-signing at a courtyard reception with refreshments. 
 
The Memorial Series of the Green Room is presented by Aqua Aston Hospitality and is made possible with the generous support of the Atherton Family Foundation and Casa de Flores. All profits from the event benefit the local nonprofit Merwin Conservancy.
 
About Joy Harjo:
In 2019, Joy Harjo was appointed the 23rd United States Poet Laureate, the first Native American to hold the position. Born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Harjo is an internationally known award-winning poet, writer, performer, and saxophone player of the Mvskoke/Creek Nation. Grammy award-winning saxophonist Paul Winter says, “Joy Harjo is a poet of music just as she is a poet of words.” 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 Non-Fiction and the American Book Award. 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 Artist 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 Arrow Dynamics. 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.