Catching the Light

by Joy Harjo

Overview

National Humanities Medalist and U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo examines the power of words and how poetry summons us toward justice and healing
 
“Her enduring message—that writing can be redemptive—resonates: ‘To write is to make a mark in the world, to assert “I am.”’ The result is a rousing testament to the power of storytelling.”—Publishers Weekly
 
“Harjo writes as if the creative journey has been the destination all along.”—Kirkus Reviews
 
In this lyrical meditation about the why of writing poetry, Joy Harjo reflects on significant points of illumination, experience, and questioning from her fifty years as a poet. Composed of intimate vignettes that take us through the author’s life journey as a youth in the late 1960s, a single mother, and a champion of Native nations, this book offers a fresh understanding of how poetry functions as an expression of purpose, spirit, community, and memory—in both the private, individual journey and as a vehicle for prophetic, public witness.
 
Harjo insists that the most meaningful poetry is birthed through cracks in history from what is broken and unseen. At the crossroads of this brokenness, she calls us to watch and listen for the songs of justice for all those America has denied. This is an homage to the power of words to defy erasure—to inscribe the story, again and again, of who we have been, who we are, and who we can be.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780300257038
Publisher:	Yale University Press
Publication date:	10/04/2022
Series:	Why I Write
Pages:	128
Product dimensions:	4.80(w) x 7.10(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Joy Harjo is an internationally renowned performer and writer of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation and the twenty-third Poet Laureate of the United States. Her books include Poet Warrior and An American Sunrise. She is the recipient of a 2022 National Humanities Medal, presented by President Biden. Her numerous other awards include the Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award of the National Book Critics Circle; the 2022 Academy of American Poets Leadership Award; and the 2023 Bollingen Prize for American Poetry, awarded by the Yale University Library.

Editorial Reviews

08/01/2022

Memoir, poetry, and criticism come together in this slim but potent treatise on “the why of writing poetry” from Harjo (Poet Warrior: A Memoir). Arranged into 50 vignettes (one for each of Harjo’s 50 years as a published poet), the collection shows how writing “can be useful as a tool for finding the way into or through the dark.” For Harjo, that darkness includes the papal bulls that declared “indigenous peoples as non-humans” and the history of manifest destiny, which led to mass displacement and genocide: “Indigenous artists must be part of the leadership in the revision of the American story,” she writes. Harjo also reflects on the start of her poetry career when she was a full-time student and single mother of two; the despair that accompanied Donald Trump’s presidency (“When the despot ineptly sought to turn the country to a totalitarian nightmare, where was poetry?”); the ravages of the Covid-19 pandemic; and her first encounters with literature: reading the Bible, “the only book in our home.” Her musings on the “story we call ‘America’ ” hit home, and her enduring message—that writing can be redemptive—resonates: “To write is to make a mark in the world, to assert ‘I am.’ ” The result is a rousing testament to the power of storytelling. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

Her musings on the ‘story we call “America”’ hit home, and her enduring message—that writing can be redemptive—resonates: ‘To write is to make a mark in the world, to assert “I am.”’ The result is a rousing testament to the power of storytelling.”—Publishers Weekly

“Readers will be fascinated to learn how poetry, performance, song, Native culture, and an unparalleled work ethic came together to inform [Harjo’s] artistic journey. . . . Always illuminating, Harjo writes as if the creative journey has been the destination all along.”—Kirkus Reviews

Selected by Time as one of the best new books of October 2022

“For Harjo, poetry is both a calling and a necessity for survival. . . . Most of these fifty vignettes get right to the heart of the matter—as is Harjo’s way. We need writing to make sense of the world.”—Yvonne C. Garrett, Brooklyn Rail

“Catching the Light is rich with Harjo’s observations about language and place and imagination and the work they do in the world—observations gathered over the course of a lifetime as a poet, memoirist, musician and three-term U.S. poet laureate.”—Jane Marcellus, Chapter 16/Chattanooga Times Free Press

Included on Book Riot’s list of “22 Must-Read Indigenous Authors”

“A must-read for any fan of poetry and literature. This new memoir contains Harjo’s ruminations on a half-century of writing and activism.”—Bustle, “October Best Books”

Praise for Joy Harjo:
 
“I turn and return to Harjo’s poetry for her breathtaking complex witness and for her world-remaking language.”—Adrienne Rich
 
“[Harjo’s] poetry is light and elixir, the very best prescription for us in wounded times.”—Sandra Cisneros, The Millions
 

From the Publisher

Praise for Joy Harjo: 
 
“I turn and return to Harjo’s poetry for her breathtaking complex witness and for her world-remaking language.”—Adrienne Rich
 
“[Harjo’s] poetry is light and elixir, the very best prescription for us in wounded times.”—SANDRA CISNEROS, THE MILLIONS

Praise for author

★ 09/01/2022

Former U.S. Poet Laureate Harjo (Poet Warrior) presents 50 vignettes on the "why" of writing poetry and song, which she aptly describes as a means of "catching light in the dark." Harjo explains how she began creating poetry because she needed a language that was beyond ordinary and found it by linking her native culture with the power of education. As a single mother in 1967, she relied on the fellowship and kindness of friends and community to support her dreams of writing while she raised two children. Harjo considers every poem love poetry with a beat because the words begin and end with rhythm. Whether the poet is writing about keeping the porch light on or an old rundown car, there is rhythm and beat. Harjo encourages listening to the music of cultures and tells how she discovered her roots (the Tulsa-born poet is an enrolled member of the Muscogee Nation). Through these 50 entries, readers will see how a poet grows and develops, both as a singular individual and a member of a society. VERDICT This highly recommended book is a comforting island for writers who enjoy reading about how authors succeed.—Joyce Sparrow

Library Journal

2022-06-08
The U.S. poet laureate details her unlikely path to poetic renown.

The latest in the publisher’s Why I Write series could also be seen as an illumination of “how I write” and “why it matters.” Harjo, who previously chronicled her life in Crazy Brave and Poet Warrior, offers 50 vignettes that serve as signposts and steppingstones, showing how she began her artistic “venture…as an undergrad student at the University of New Mexico, a single mother with two children (and sometimes three), who went to school full-time, starting out as a pre-med major with a minor in dance, and changing the first year to studio art, my original career intent.” That was a half-century ago, and readers will be fascinated to learn how poetry, performance, song, Native culture, and an unparalleled work ethic came together to inform her artistic journey. “I worked long hours with my research position at American Indian Studies, and my full-time slate of classes, and the day-to-day childcare….I’d stay up nights painting and drawing, and then poetry elbowed its way in, when I thought I had no more room,” she writes. “My long nights then became a tug-of-war between poetry, artwork, and figuring out how my little family would make it on nearly nothing.” Harjo’s tone is both modest and inspirational as she focuses on the process of writing poetry, or “catching light in the dark.” She describes her work as not necessarily a choice but rather a calling she could not resist pursuing. The author examines how her Native identity and legacy have informed her writing and how the cultural upheavals of the 1960s and ’70s shaped it, imbuing it with even stronger energy and urgency. She also describes poetry she first heard on the jukeboxes of the Southwest and how jazz became an important influence, as well.

Always illuminating, Harjo writes as if the creative journey has been the destination all along.

Kirkus Reviews