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A review by lory_enterenchanted
Poet Warrior by Joy Harjo
challenging
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
5.0
Reviews and more on my blog: Entering the Enchanted Castle
I love Joy Harjo's books. I feel as though I've found a spiritual teacher, an older-sister guide who can instruct me about the path I also want to follow: Poet-Warrior-Healer. So grateful for her eloquent, heartful, insightful words!
Some quotes I marked for sharing and contemplation:
A family is essentially a field of stories, each intricately connected. Death does not sever the connection; rather, the story expands as it continues unwinding interdimensionally.
My failures have been my most exacting teachers. They are all linked by one central characteristic, and that is the failure to properly regard the voice of inner truth. That voice speaks softly. It is not jugmental, full of pride, or otherwise loud. It does not deride, shame, or otherwise attempt to derail you. When I fail to trust what my deepest knowing tells me, then I suffer. The voice of inner truth, or the knowing, has access to the wisdom of eternal knowledge. The perspective of that voice is timeless.
East: A healer learns through wounding, illness, and death.
North: A dreamer learns through deception, loss, and addiction.
West: A musician learns through silence, loneliness, and endless roaming.
South: A poet learns through injustice, wordlessness, and not being heard.
Center: A wanderer learns through standing still.
When I listen, I am always led in the right direction. That doesn't mean the resultant path is easy. It might be the more difficult path. You may have to clear boulders, walk through fire after fire, or try to find footing in precarious flooding. You will play the wrong notes and write words that mean nothing to anyone else but you. And you may appear to have followed the wrong path even though it was the right path, as you fail over and over again.
I do not want to be haunted by that which I cannot speak. Or by that which is by nature unspeakable.
Then speak.
Grow poetry in the debris left behind by rage.
Plant so there is enough for everyone to eat.
Make sure there is room for everyone at the table.
Let all of us inhabit the story, in peace.
Even when we are young, we know things. We know when we have broken a law. We don't always know how to put things back together.
Is this the nature of mothers and mothering? Does each generation carry forth the wounding that needs to be healed, from mother to mother, cooking pot to cooking pot, song to poetry, and poetry to beadwork, until one day in eternity we will understand what we have created together?
My family didn't understand my gift or me. I didn't fully understand it either. All I knew was that I had to go wherever it took me. Every place it took me I found something I needed, sort of an extended lifelong scavenger hunt game. I picked up a piece I needed in every location and I assumed that one day they would all fit together, and I would finally understand what it all means.
There is no story, [she] told them, without the hard parts.
The hard parts teach us how to live, so that we will know without a doubt what we carry.
Now, breathe.
And when you breathe remember the source of the gift of all breathing.
When you walk, remember the source of the gift of all walking.
And when you run, remember the source of the gift of all running.
And when you laugh, remember the source of the gift of all laughter.
And when you cry, remember the source of the gift of all tears.
And when your heart is broken, remember the source of the gift of all breaking.
And when your heart is put back together, remember the source of all putting back together.
To hear poetry in person is to experience poetry as it is traditionally meant to be experienced, that is, you feel it breathe and experience how it travels out dynamically to become part of the winds skirting the earth, even as we inhale and take the words into our bloodstream. To speak is to bring into being. Poetry can bring rain, make someone fall in love, can hold the grief of a nation. Poetry is essentially an oral art whose roots are intertwined with music and dance.
I believe every poem is ritual: there is a naming, a beginning, a knot or question, then possibly revelation, and then closure, which can be opening, setting the reader, speaker, or singer out and back on a journey.
Momaday's poem, and perhaps every poem, establishes itself as a kind of "I am" assertion. A poem exists because it says: "I am the voice of the poet or what is moving through time, place, and event; I am sound sense and words; I am made of all this; and though I may not know where I am going, I will show you, and we will sing together."
Her house was thick with song resonance. Through her eyes i came to see that all is spiritual and either we move about respectfully within it, or we are lost.
I love Joy Harjo's books. I feel as though I've found a spiritual teacher, an older-sister guide who can instruct me about the path I also want to follow: Poet-Warrior-Healer. So grateful for her eloquent, heartful, insightful words!
Some quotes I marked for sharing and contemplation:
A family is essentially a field of stories, each intricately connected. Death does not sever the connection; rather, the story expands as it continues unwinding interdimensionally.
My failures have been my most exacting teachers. They are all linked by one central characteristic, and that is the failure to properly regard the voice of inner truth. That voice speaks softly. It is not jugmental, full of pride, or otherwise loud. It does not deride, shame, or otherwise attempt to derail you. When I fail to trust what my deepest knowing tells me, then I suffer. The voice of inner truth, or the knowing, has access to the wisdom of eternal knowledge. The perspective of that voice is timeless.
East: A healer learns through wounding, illness, and death.
North: A dreamer learns through deception, loss, and addiction.
West: A musician learns through silence, loneliness, and endless roaming.
South: A poet learns through injustice, wordlessness, and not being heard.
Center: A wanderer learns through standing still.
When I listen, I am always led in the right direction. That doesn't mean the resultant path is easy. It might be the more difficult path. You may have to clear boulders, walk through fire after fire, or try to find footing in precarious flooding. You will play the wrong notes and write words that mean nothing to anyone else but you. And you may appear to have followed the wrong path even though it was the right path, as you fail over and over again.
I do not want to be haunted by that which I cannot speak. Or by that which is by nature unspeakable.
Then speak.
Grow poetry in the debris left behind by rage.
Plant so there is enough for everyone to eat.
Make sure there is room for everyone at the table.
Let all of us inhabit the story, in peace.
Even when we are young, we know things. We know when we have broken a law. We don't always know how to put things back together.
Is this the nature of mothers and mothering? Does each generation carry forth the wounding that needs to be healed, from mother to mother, cooking pot to cooking pot, song to poetry, and poetry to beadwork, until one day in eternity we will understand what we have created together?
My family didn't understand my gift or me. I didn't fully understand it either. All I knew was that I had to go wherever it took me. Every place it took me I found something I needed, sort of an extended lifelong scavenger hunt game. I picked up a piece I needed in every location and I assumed that one day they would all fit together, and I would finally understand what it all means.
There is no story, [she] told them, without the hard parts.
The hard parts teach us how to live, so that we will know without a doubt what we carry.
Now, breathe.
And when you breathe remember the source of the gift of all breathing.
When you walk, remember the source of the gift of all walking.
And when you run, remember the source of the gift of all running.
And when you laugh, remember the source of the gift of all laughter.
And when you cry, remember the source of the gift of all tears.
And when your heart is broken, remember the source of the gift of all breaking.
And when your heart is put back together, remember the source of all putting back together.
To hear poetry in person is to experience poetry as it is traditionally meant to be experienced, that is, you feel it breathe and experience how it travels out dynamically to become part of the winds skirting the earth, even as we inhale and take the words into our bloodstream. To speak is to bring into being. Poetry can bring rain, make someone fall in love, can hold the grief of a nation. Poetry is essentially an oral art whose roots are intertwined with music and dance.
I believe every poem is ritual: there is a naming, a beginning, a knot or question, then possibly revelation, and then closure, which can be opening, setting the reader, speaker, or singer out and back on a journey.
Momaday's poem, and perhaps every poem, establishes itself as a kind of "I am" assertion. A poem exists because it says: "I am the voice of the poet or what is moving through time, place, and event; I am sound sense and words; I am made of all this; and though I may not know where I am going, I will show you, and we will sing together."
Her house was thick with song resonance. Through her eyes i came to see that all is spiritual and either we move about respectfully within it, or we are lost.