Celebrating the power of words and the creative spirit. . .
. . .in a landscape that Hemingway loved.
The annual Hemingway Distinguished Lecture is presented each July, honoring the month of Ernest Hemingway’s birth and death.
2024 Distinguished Lecturer: JOY HARJO
July 31, 2024
This year, The Community Library welcomes JOY HARJO, who in 2019 was appointed the 23rd United States Poet Laureate: the first Native American to hold the position and only the second person to serve three terms in the role.
Harjo’s ten books of poetry include Weaving Sundown in a Scarlett Light, An American Sunrise, Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings, How We Became Human: New and Selected Poems, and She Had Some Horses. She is also the author of two memoirs, Crazy Brave and Poet Warrior, which invites us to travel along the heartaches, losses, and humble realizations of her “poet-warrior” road. She has edited several anthologies of Native American writing including When the Light of the World was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through — A Norton Anthology of Native Nations Poetry, and Living Nations, Living Words, the companion anthology to her signature poet laureate project.
Her many writing awards include the 2022 Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award, the 2019 Jackson Prize from Poets & Writers, the Ruth Lilly Prize from the Poetry Foundation, the 2015 Wallace Stevens Award from the Academy of American Poets, and the William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America. She is a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, Board of Directors Chair of the Native Arts & Cultures Foundation, and is artist-in-residence for the Bob Dylan Center. A renowned musician, Harjo performs with her saxophone nationally and internationally; her most recent album is I Pray For My Enemies. She lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
“Remember” – Poem by Joy Harjo & Film by Jessica Sanders
Enjoy this stunning and powerful short film, narrated by the poet, courtesy of the Sun Valley Writers’ Conference.
Joy Harjo in the News
Read or listen to Joy’s poem “Eat” in The New Yorker here:
“Eat” by Joy Harjo, February 26, 2024
