Joy Harjo: Lifted by a poet's blog

While I was getting ready for tomorrow's Native American cultural expression class a few minutes ago, I came across something new (at least to me!) that blogging lends itself to. It was Joy Harjo's Web Log. Harjo is a poet and musician of Muscogee (Creek) heritage, and one of my favorites; I haven't taught her since we stopped doing literature in our freshman English classes a couple of years ago, and I didn't know she's taken up blogging.

What it is, as far as I can tell: It's a writer's journal. Drafts of poems ... scraps of correspondence ... tributes to the late Vine Deloria, author of Custer Died for Your Sins, who died in November ... a speech by Oglala medicine man Sidney Has-No-Horses on how we destroy the environment ... more poetry ... thoughts, still in the process of being formed into words, about the spirit and other things that matter. What a gift to have this artistry up on the web, and what an inspiration to have it up there while it's still coming into being, before it's ossified in an "intro to lit" anthology.

A passage written Dec. 26 that reminds me why I like Harjo's poetry so much:

Every day is literally the beginning of a new year, but this particular time which marks a changing of the seasons, towards winter and introspection. I'm concerned about the direction of the tribe and a lack of a cohesive and energetic vision, I'm concerned about the general state of compassion or lack thereof, about the fascist governement in power in this country, about the squeezing of my heart with the pressures of sadness that is all of the family (blood, in laws, ex laws, outlaws, etc etc) stories and recent deaths around alcohol, drugs, abuse, about the recent destructive trends in weather--all of this has been predicted. We have been duly warned that if we do not actively take part in and acknowledge the gifts of this earth, and the very spirits of the earth and skies then we will forget who we are and it will all fall apart.

We are in the falling apart. And we're in it together. We have to keep going.

Tonight I figure I'm either exhausted or depressed. Tomorrow I will get up and the sun will give me energy to keep going--I am going to have to find another way, though--this particular route has been exhausted.

What delighted today, however, was a monk seal who crawled up on the beach and enjoyed the sun with all the picnickers and surfers and (a few brave) paddlers (I wasn't one of them...did not wish to brave the break). They are rare. And the three whales frolicking just off shore.

And then there's what I don't write here, what I don't say, the ghost blog. Maybe next time.

It came in the middle of a longer, kind of philosophical passage, but reading about that seal and the whales did for me what Harjo's poetry so often does, it lifted me. What a gift!