Joy Harjo - Indigenous Americans - People & Culture - The World

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Joy Harjo (nation: Muscogee/Creek; citizenship: USAmerican. 1951)

"Strange Fruit" was published in "Reinventing the Enemy's Language. Contemporary Native Women's Writings of North America", edited by Joy Harjo and Gloria Bird.

Strange Fruit / Fruta extraña is included in Sisters. Workshops with Poems - reproduced, recorded and translated with Joy Harjo's permission

Read her poem "Strange Fruit" (1 page)
Listen to her poem "Strange Fruit" at the TP Podcast

Go to Joy Harjo's webita in Spanish & English at mujerpalabra.net > Conoce a...

(Here is our Billie Holiday's "Strange Fruit" webpage)

Watch this, Joy Harjo reading another woman poet, nila northsun: "99 things to do before you die" and its "keeping-company" piece (also great and funny!). This poem is included in the Anthology "Reinventing...". Joy Harjo is reading at a gathering called An Evening of Native American Women Writers, held at Martin Luther King, Jr. middle school on Saturday May 24, 1997.

Watch Joy Harjo's experimental Video Diary piece (8 minutes)

Listen to Joy Harjo!


Check out Joy Harjo's website!

Listen to her music

Read this interview and learn about her poetry and music

Read an article on her poetry

Getting in touch with Joy Harjo...

Dear Joy Harjo,
I'm an English teacher at state-run language schools in Madrid, Spain, Europe. For the last year, I've been reading books I bought via the Net by American Indian artists and thinkers, and watching DVDs I got from Canada and Amazon. My idea is to offer students the chance to learn about American Indians from American Indians themselves, as the only news we ever got in Spain about North American Indians came from the US American movie industry (and that was ages ago, for decades we never heard of "Indians" again). I'd like to ask you for permission to use your poem "Strange Fruit" and ...

Joy Harjo replied saying we could use her poem and thanking for asking for permission to do so. Wow. :) And I just went ahead and posted on the TP Forum about Why I love the Internet!!! :D