As the first Native American U.S. Poet Laureate, Joy Harjo has written poetry that explores her personal experiences, the history of her ancestors, and social change. Now she’s teaching you how to find the language to express yourself and approach your art with deeper motivation. Explore rhythm in art, navigate the world of revisions, and unlock your innate creativity to help you express your unique stories.

Syllabus

Meet Your Instructor

When Joy was named the 23rd U.S. Poet Laureate, she was the first Native American poet to hold the title. But long before that, she was actively raising awareness about the lack of Native representation in the “American book of poetry”—because it contradicts the mythic storyline of America.

Listening Comes Before Writing

For many people, writing is what happens when you sit down and put pen to paper. But before we hastily jump into writing, we need to remember to listen. How can you create space for listening and inspiration before embarking upon writing? Joy shows you how to reach new levels of listening by opening up to the whole of human experience.

Going Into Difficult Places

Artists and creators feel intimidated by all kinds of blocks. In this lesson, Joy shares her belief that knowledge is endless and shares ways to access that knowledge, such as learning to draw from your dream world to find meaning. She teaches the necessity of undoing beliefs that hold you back. Drawing on these principles will fortify you to work from an endless abundance of creativity.

Unblocking Creativity

Writing a poem of witness is an event in and of itself aside from the event that is being written about. In reading several types of poems, Joy shares how she views poetry of witness as essential to her political activism, the transformative power of telling the truth, and how releasing the bad can lead to a deeper understanding.

Imagery and Form

If traditional forms of poetry don’t resonate with you, explore other ways to tell your stories. In this lesson, Joy pushes you to free yourself from existing structures and make up your own by using figurative language and forms that reflect who you are.

Writing and Revising

Joy moves fluidly on and off the page—from poetry and memoir to song and music. She shares what inspires her to land on one form over another, her sense of discovery, and how she always takes time to play.

Honoring the Source

Everybody confronts similar questions: What are we doing here? How did we get here? What’s going to happen next? The mystery of not knowing often brings us to poetry as a way to help us navigate those big questions and craft our origin stories. Joy teaches us to take a breath and honor our unique identities and memories by story gathering and using objects to tap into our personal mythology.

Poetry Ancestors

In this lesson, Joy encourages you to look at your favorite poems to determine your “poetry ancestors” and see how relationships to past poets emerge in your writing. Discover how everyone fits into the poetic tradition, and that there is an extensive web that includes all of us.

Mapping Representation

Joy talks about her work as the U.S. Poet Laureate on the Living Nations, Living Words project, a digital mapping of contemporary Native poets located at the Library of Congress. She discusses how we use poetry for the most important rituals of our lives and urges you to use poetry to map your own soul.

Playing With Song and Poetry

Joy shares a story from her childhood and the reason she learned to play the saxophone at age 40. In this bonus lesson, Joy takes us on a journey with her musical partner Larry Mitchell to turn a poem into a song.