Joy Harjo
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.
Photos
Films (13)

Highway 99: A Double Album
2025 · Self

National Anthem
2023 · Self

Cara Romero: Following the Light
2022 · Herself

Imagining the Indian: The Fight Against Native American Mascoting
2021 · Self - Interviewee

Love and Fury
2020 · Herself

Words from a Bear
2019 · Self

Medicine Woman
2016 · Self - Narrator (voice)

Games of the North
2011 · Narrator

A Thousand Roads
2005 · Screenplay

Pepper's Pow Wow
1996 · Self
The Native Americans: The Tribal People of the Northwest
1994 · Self - Narrator (voice)

Jaune Quick-To-See Smith
1982 · Narrative Poetry, Production Assistant

Khonsay: Poem of Many Tongues
· Self


