Joy Harjo
Birthday: Born in 1951-05-09 in Tulsa, Oklahoma, United States
Deathday: Alive
Joy Harjo, the 23rd Poet Laureate of the U.S., is a member of the Mvskoke Nation and belongs to Oce Vpofv (Hickory Ground). She is only the second poet to be appointed a third term as U.S. Poet Laureate. Born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, she left home to attend high school at the innovative Institute of American Indian Arts, which was then a Bureau of Indian Affairs school. Harjo began writing poetry as a member of the University of New Mexico’s Native student organization, the Kiva Club, in response to Native empowerment movements. She went on to earn her MFA at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and teach English, Creative Writing, and American Indian Studies at University of California-Los Angeles, University of New Mexico, University of Arizona, Arizona State, University of Illinois, University of Colorado, University of Hawai’i, Institute of American Indian Arts, and University of Tennessee, while performing music and poetry nationally and internationally.
TV Credits
Vow of Silence: The Assassination of Annie Mae
Character: Self - 23rd U.S. Poet Laureate
This true crime docuseries examines the murder of Annie Mae Aquash – a Mi'kmaq woman from Nova Scotia, Canada, a mother of two daughters, a teacher, and a revolutionary who fought for Indigenous rights in the 1970s whose death went unsolved for almost 30 years....
Movie Credits
Cara Romero: Following the Light
Character: Herself
Cara Romero's contemporary fine art photography captures Indigenous and non-Indigenous cultural memory, collective history, and lived experiences from an Indigenous female perspective....
Imagining the Indian: The Fight Against Native American Mascoting
Character: Self - Interviewee
Examining the movement that is ending the use of Native American names, logos, and mascots in the world of sports and beyond....
Jaune Quick-To-See Smith
Character: Narrative Poetry
Jaune Quick-To-See-Smith, Shoshone French Cree painter, discusses her abstract paintings, which depict her Indian heritage with scenes of early plains lifestyles....
Words from a Bear
Character: Self
A visual journey into the mind and soul of Pulitzer Prize–winning author Navarro Scott Momaday, relating each written line to his unique Native American experience representing ancestry, place, and oral history....
Medicine Woman
Character: Self - Narrator (voice)
America's first Native doctor, Susan La Flesche Picotte (1865-1915) studied medicine at a time when few women dared. She graduated first in her class and returned home to serve as doctor to her Omaha tribe. During this heartbreaking and violent time she never gave up hope. The reverberations from her shattered world continue today as Native Americans suffer from alarming rates of disease, suicide and mental illness. Like Susan, these modern day medicine women from the Omaha, Lakota and Navajo t...
Games of the North
Character: Narrator
For thousands of years, traditional Inuit sports have been vital for survival within the unforgiving Arctic. Acrobatic and explosive, these ancestral games evolved to strengthen mind, body and spirit within the community. Following four modern Inuit athletes reveals their unique relationship to the games as they compete across the North. As unprecedented change sweeps across their traditional lands, their stories illuminate the importance of the games today....
Love and Fury
Character: Herself
Filmmaker Sterlin Harjo follows Native artists for a year as they navigate their careers in the US and abroad. The film explores the immense complexities each artist faces concerning their own identity as Native artists, as well as pushing further Native art into a post-colonial world....
Khonsay: Poem of Many Tongues
Character: Self
A tribute and call to action for linguistic diversity. A 15-minute motion poem (poem on film), each line comes from a different treasure or minority language. 48 speakers each speak in their mother tongues, as line by line, language by language, the poem is created....