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Joy Harjo, U.S. Poet Laureate: A Resource Guide

External Websites

The following links to external websites provide more information about the life and works of Native American poet Joy Harjo.

The best starting point for biographical information about Joy Harjo is her official website.

Biographical information about Joy Harjo also can be found on the following websites:

For the latest news and discussions related to Joy Harjo, see:

A selected list of news articles, interviews, and conversations, arranged in chronological order, follows below. For additional articles also see Joy Harjo's official website, which includes interviews, reviews, and articles from 2013 to present External, as well as an archive of pre-2012 articles External.


Selected Articles, News, and Interviews

2022

2021

2020

2019

Many videos of Joy Harjo reading and discussing her work can be found through the following sources.

  • 1976 Received 1st and 2nd Place Awards in Drawing at the University of New Mexico Kiva Club Nizhoni Days Art Show
  • Received The University of New Mexico Academy of American Poets Award
  • 1977 Received the Writers Forum at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs
  • 1980 1st Place in Poetry in the Santa Fe Festival of the Arts
  • Named one of the Outstanding Young Women of America in 1978 & 1984
  • 1987 NEH Summer Stipend in American Indian Literature and Verbal Arts
  • 1989 Arizona Commission on the Arts Poetry Fellowship
  • 1990 The American Indian Distinguished Achievement in the Arts Award
  • 1991 Received the Delmore Schwartz Memorial Award from New York University
  • 1991 American Book Awards Before Columbus Foundation for Mad Love and War
  • 1991 Oakland PEN, Josephine Miles Poetry Award
  • 1991 William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America, awarded for the best book of poetry
  • National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowships in 1992 and 1978
  • Honorary Doctorate from Benedictine College in 1992
  • 1993 The Woodrow Wilson Fellowship at Green Mountain College in Poultney, VT
  • 1994 Witter Bynner Poetry Fellowship
  • 1995 Oklahoma Book Award, awarded for The Woman Who Fell from the Sky
  • 1996 Bravo Award from the Albuquerque Arts Alliance
  • Mountains and Plains Booksellers Award
  • Musical Artist of the Year for 1996-1997 for the CD, Poetic Justice, from the Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers
  • 1997 New Mexico Governor's Award for Excellence in the Arts
  • 1998 Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund Writer's Award
  • 1995 Oklahoma Book Award in Poetry, awarded for The Woman Who Fell From the Sky
  • 1998 Finalist for the Oklahoma Book Award for Reinventing the Enemy's Language
  • 2001 Writer of the Year/Children's Books, awarded by the Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers for her book The Good Luck Cat
  • 2003 Oklahoma Book Award for Poetry for How We Became Human: New and Selected Poems 1975-2001 (Book)
  • 2003 Arrell Gibson Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Oklahoma Center for How We Became Human: New and Selected Poems 1975-2001 (Book)
  • Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native Writers Circle of The Americas
  • 2003-2004 Storyteller of the Year, awarded for Native Joy for Real (CD) by the Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers
  • 2003-2004 Writer of the Year - Poetry, awarded for How We Became Human: New and Selected Poems 1975-2001 (book)
  • 2005 Writer of the Year awarded by the Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers for the script for A Thousand Roads, 2005, made for the National Museum of the American Indian
  • 2008 United States Artists Rasmuson Fellows
  • 2009 New Mexico Music Awards, Native American-Contemporary for Equinox
  • 2009 Eagle Spirit Achievement Award
  • 2009 NAMMY Native American Music Award, Best Female
  • 2011 Mvskoke Women’s Leadership Award, Artist of the Year
  • 2013 Sundance Institute Playwrights Retreat at Ucross Foundation
  • 2013 American Book Awards Before Columbus Foundation for Crazy Brave
  • 2013 PEN Literary Award in Creative Nonfiction for Crazy Brave
  • 2014 Black Earth Institute Award
  • 2014 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship
  • 2014 Oklahoma Writers Hall of Fame
  • 2015 Wallace Stevens Award in Poetry by the Academy of American Poets Board of Chancellors
  • American Library Association Notable book: Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings
  • 2016 Griffin Poetry Prize, shortlisted for Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings
  • 2017 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize
  • 2019 Jackson Prize, Poets & Writers
  • 2019 Association of Tribal Archives, Libraries, and Museums (ATALM) Literary Award
  • 2019 Tulsan of the Year, TulsaWorld
  • 2019 United States Poet Laureate
  • 2020 Oklahoma Book Award for An American Sunrise
  • 2020 Institute of American Indian Arts Honorary Doctoral Degree
  • 2021 Association for Women in Communication International Matrix Award
  • 2021 Association for Women in Communication, Tulsa Professional Chapter - Saidie Award for Lifetime Achievement Newsmaker Award
  • 2021 SUNY Buffalo Honorary Doctoral Degree
  • 2021 UNC Asheville Honorary Doctoral Degree
  • 2021 University of Pennsylvania Honorary Doctoral Degree
  • 2021 Smith College Honorary Doctoral Degree
  • 2021 PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award for When the Light of the World Was Subdued Our Songs Came Through
  • 31st Annual Reading the West Book Award for Poetry, When the Light of the World Was Subdued Our Songs Came Through (2021)
  • 2021 Inductee, National Women's Hall of Fame
  • 2021 Designation as the 14th Oklahoma Cultural Treasure at the 44th Oklahoma Governor's Arts Awards
  • 2022 YWCA Pinnacle Awards' Anna C. Roth Legacy Award
  • 2022 University of Tennessee Knoxville Honorary Doctoral Degree
  • 2022 Inductee, Oklahoma Hall of Fame
  • 2022 Academy of American Poets Leadership Award
  • 2022 Americans for the Arts, National Arts Awards, Lifetime Achievement Award, October
  • 32nd Annual Reading the West Book Award for Nonfiction - Poet Warrior (2022)
  • 2023 Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award, National Book Critics Circle
  • 2023 Bollingen Prize for American Poetry, Yale University, for Weaving Sundown in a Scarlet Light and for lifetime achievement in and contributions to American poetry
  • 2023 Harper Lee Award
  • 2024 Lumine Lifetime Achievement Award, Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Oklahoma
  • 2024 Honorary Doctor of Letters (DLitt) from the University of St Andrews
  • 2024 Hemingway Distinguished Lecturer, The Community Library
  • 2025 Kettering Foundation Ruth Yellowhawk Fellowship