Joy Harjo author page

Joy Harjo biography

Joy Harjo is a poet, performer and writer of the Muscogee Nation. She was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and earned a BA from the University of New Mexico and an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Her writing draws on First Nation storytelling and histories, feminist poetic traditions and social justice poetic traditions.

Harjo’s poetry books include She Had Some Horses, published in 1983, and her work also includes memoir, plays, essays, children’s books, anthologies and recorded music. Her books for younger readers and classroom study include Remember and the picture-book adaptation Remember, illustrated by Michaela Goade.

Harjo has worked as a teacher of creative writing and has taught at the University of New Mexico and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She has also been Professor and Chair of Excellence in Creative Writing at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Alongside writing, she is a saxophonist and vocalist who has released albums of original music.

Harjo served three terms as the 23rd Poet Laureate of the United States. Her honours include the Ruth Lilly Prize in Poetry in 2017, the Bollingen Prize for American Poetry in 2023, the National Humanities Medal, and the Poetry Society of America’s Frost Medal in 2024.