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jess_mango's review against another edition
4.0
A collection of poems by the U.S.'s first Native American Poet Laureate. These poem's reflect on the history of Harjo's Mvskoke people, also her thoughts on her families lives and her own experiences working for Native rights.
This was a good, straight-forward collection with a message.
This was a good, straight-forward collection with a message.
dinasamimi's review against another edition
4.0
This is my first time reading Harjo, standalone. I love a poetry collection with a narrative and Harjo has stories and histories to tell. Not necessarily the best or favorite for me but worthwhile.
loveisabird's review against another edition
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
fast-paced
4.5
i’m really bad at comprehending a lot of poetry that isn’t like. rupi kaur level of basicness. so there’s a fair portion of this that couldn’t quite register for me, even on my second read of the book. but joy harjo has a captivating enough voice that the feel and flow and rhythm of even the poems that lost me most are still enough for me to appreciate the experience of reading her. and the poems i am able to comprehend! well boy they knock me on my ass.
also i saw her live twice this week at my university (and got to meet her/have this book signed very briefly!) and like honestly? her whole existence and aura and presence itself feels like poetry.
also i saw her live twice this week at my university (and got to meet her/have this book signed very briefly!) and like honestly? her whole existence and aura and presence itself feels like poetry.
bogbodyanon's review against another edition
5.0
Listening to Joy Harjo is always a special experience. Hearing her poems and songs about her own family's history of removal from their ancestral lands by the US government was especially moving.
nattyyllie's review against another edition
4.0
(4.5 star)
Beautiful piece. The work did not focus on underlying hatred and grudge and rather took on a tone of quiet dignity and persevering strength. It is startling how humbly Harjo depicts the strength of the Indian/Native American people of Mvskoke and the cruelty they endured.
Poems/quotes:
Break My Heart
“Be who you are, even if it kills you. It will. Over and over again. Even as you live.”
Exile of Memory
“If we pay enough, maybe we can buy ourselves back.”
Granddaughters
“I carried a sack of dreams from a starlit dwelling”
Directions to You
“Even in darkness you can be found”
Mama and Papa Have the Going Home Shiprock Blues: Song 6
“What we speak always returns / With a spike of barbs / Or the sweet taste of berries in summer.”
First Morning
“We will carry your memory here, until we join you In just a little while, in one blink of star time.”
For Earth’s Grandsons
Running
“I was afraid of the dark because then I could see / Everything. The truth with its eyes staring / Back at me. The mouth of the dark with its shiny moon teeth, / No words, just a hiss and a snap. // I could hear my heart hurting With my in-the-dark ears.”
“I thought I could take being a girl with her heart in her / Arms. I carried it for justice. For the rights of all Indians.”
Road
My Man’s Feet
Becoming Seventy
“at the door between worlds. I was happier than ever before to welcome her, happiness was the path she chose to enter, and I couldn’t push yet, not yet, and then there appeared a pool of the bluest water. We waited there for a breath: one, two, three, four // to catch up, and then it did, and she took it that girl who was beautiful beyond dolphin dreaming, and we made it, we did, to the other side of suffering. This is the story our mothers tell but we couldn’t hear it in our ears stuffed with junk advertising,”
Bless This Land
“Bless us, these lands, said the rememberer. These lands aren’t our lands. These lands aren’t your lands. We are this land. // And the blessing began a graceful moving through the grasses of time, from the beginning, to the circling around place of time, always moving, always”
Beautiful piece. The work did not focus on underlying hatred and grudge and rather took on a tone of quiet dignity and persevering strength. It is startling how humbly Harjo depicts the strength of the Indian/Native American people of Mvskoke and the cruelty they endured.
Poems/quotes:
Break My Heart
“Be who you are, even if it kills you. It will. Over and over again. Even as you live.”
Exile of Memory
“If we pay enough, maybe we can buy ourselves back.”
Granddaughters
“I carried a sack of dreams from a starlit dwelling”
Directions to You
“Even in darkness you can be found”
Mama and Papa Have the Going Home Shiprock Blues: Song 6
“What we speak always returns / With a spike of barbs / Or the sweet taste of berries in summer.”
First Morning
“We will carry your memory here, until we join you In just a little while, in one blink of star time.”
For Earth’s Grandsons
Running
“I was afraid of the dark because then I could see / Everything. The truth with its eyes staring / Back at me. The mouth of the dark with its shiny moon teeth, / No words, just a hiss and a snap. // I could hear my heart hurting With my in-the-dark ears.”
“I thought I could take being a girl with her heart in her / Arms. I carried it for justice. For the rights of all Indians.”
Road
My Man’s Feet
Becoming Seventy
“at the door between worlds. I was happier than ever before to welcome her, happiness was the path she chose to enter, and I couldn’t push yet, not yet, and then there appeared a pool of the bluest water. We waited there for a breath: one, two, three, four // to catch up, and then it did, and she took it that girl who was beautiful beyond dolphin dreaming, and we made it, we did, to the other side of suffering. This is the story our mothers tell but we couldn’t hear it in our ears stuffed with junk advertising,”
Bless This Land
“Bless us, these lands, said the rememberer. These lands aren’t our lands. These lands aren’t your lands. We are this land. // And the blessing began a graceful moving through the grasses of time, from the beginning, to the circling around place of time, always moving, always”
babyskillet's review
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
4.5
I really liked this. I thought the poetry and imagery was beautiful. Some of the poems felt like a warm nostalgic hug and others felt like a call to action. I loved the authors voice in each page.