In this episode of You're Going to Die: The Podcast host Ned Buskirk speaks with the 23rd Poet Laureate of the United States Joy Harjo, internationally renowned poet, performer, and writer of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation.

Harjo is the author of ten books of poetry, most recently Weaving Sundown in a Scarlet Light, American Sunrise, which won a 2020 Oklahoma Book Award, and Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings, which was shortlisted for the Griffin Prize. In addition to poetry, she has published several award-winning children’s books, prose collections, plays, and two memoirs, including Crazy Brave, which was awarded the PEN USA Literary Award and the American Book Award. Harjo has edited several anthologies, including When the Light of the World was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through—A Norton Anthology of Native Nations Poetry, and has produced seven award-winning music albums, including Winding Through the Milky Way, for which she was awarded a NAMMY for Best Female Artist of the year. Her many honors include Poetry Society of America’s 2024 Frost Medal, Yale's 2023 Bollingen Prize for American Poetry, the National Book Critics Circle Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award, a 2022 National Humanities Medal, and the Ruth Lily Prize for Lifetime Achievement from the Poetry Foundation, among others. Currently the Ruth Yellowhawk Fellow at the Kettering Foundation, Harjo has served as a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, Board of Directors Chair of the Native Arts & Cultures Foundation and is the inaugural Artist-in-Residence for Tulsa’s Bob Dylan Center. She lives on the Muscogee Nation Reservation in Oklahoma with her husband, Owen Sapulpa.

joy harjo’s

Produced by Nick Jaina

IF YOU'D LIKE TO GET INVOLVED EMAIL US AT [email protected]

Support our 501(c)3 nonprofit with tax-deductible donations here: https://www.yg2d.com/donate

Andd get episodes before everyone else by becoming a patron now at https://www.patreon.com/YG2D.

The views expressed in this podcast are those of the guests and do not necessarily represent the views of YG2D.