Exile of Memory
By
Joy Harjo
From the Spring 2020 Issue
Joy Harjo, born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, is a member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, whose original homelands spanned the entire region known today as the southeastern United States. Harjo’s poetry inhabits landscapes of the Southwest and Southeast, but also Alaska and Hawaii—and centers on the need for remembrance and transcendence. Her work is often autobiographical, informed by the natural world, and above, all preoccupied with survival and the limitations of language. She was named the United States poet laureate in June 2019.