Joy Harjo thinks writing can heal regret

Summary

Wild Card with Rachel Martin - Episode Summary: "Joy Harjo thinks writing can heal regret"

Release Date: April 24, 2025

In this compelling episode of Wild Card with Rachel Martin, host Rachel Martin engages in a profound conversation with renowned poet and musician Joy Harjo. Breaking away from traditional interview formats, the episode delves deep into Harjo's life, exploring her experiences, creative processes, and the transformative power of writing and music.

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1. Journey to Self-Discovery and Creativity

Joy Harjo shares her transformative journey from a challenging childhood to becoming one of America's most revered poets. Growing up in Oklahoma as a member of the Muscogee Creek Nation, Harjo faced significant adversity, including her stepfather's suppression of her creativity.

Joy Harjo [02:09]: "Every poet kind of has their themes, and I realized mine is transformation. What happens, you know, in those transformative spaces."

Harjo emphasizes the pivotal role that creativity played in her healing process, stating that storytelling and poetry were not just passions but necessities for her survival and self-expression.

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2. Escaping into Imagination: Memories from Youth

Harjo recounts her teenage years, describing how she sought solace in solitude to escape the chaos of a large household. Her "closet" became a sanctuary where she could immerse herself in drawing and dreaming.

Joy Harjo [02:37]: "I would escape into the closet... that's where I find things. That's where I find images and sounds and fresh ideas."

She likens adolescence to a chrysalis stage, a period of profound transformation filled with creative potential.

Joy Harjo [03:27]: "I think of adolescence as being like a chrysalis moment... there's a lot of innate power, creative power, in that."

---

3. The Power of Place and Heritage

Discussing the places that shaped her, Harjo reflects on both physical locations and her "dreaming realm." Visits to Fort Gibson Lake with her family provided moments of respite and connection with nature, symbolizing the elemental influence of her heritage.

Joy Harjo [06:18]: "Going to the lake... it was taking us out of the ordinary in a way. Taking us out of the ordinary world to the water, the place of water."

Her dreams from childhood, vividly recalling places like Egypt, highlight her deep-seated connection to a broader consciousness and the limitless realms of imagination.

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4. Pivotal Crossroads and Embracing the Arts

A significant turning point in Harjo's life was her decision to attend the Institute of American Indian Arts instead of Chilocco Indian School. This choice immersed her in a vibrant community of native artists, providing the support and environment necessary for her creative flourishing.

Joy Harjo [10:35]: "I felt I was in my place... and I felt I was in my place and before I had felt almost misplaced."

Harjo credits this decision with saving her life, allowing her to embrace her artistic identity amidst personal and familial turmoil.

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5. Healing Through Poetry and Music

Harjo discusses her latest book, "For a Girl Becoming," a children's book that transcends age to address themes of growth and healing. She connects this work to another book, "Washing My Mother's Body," where she channels unresolved grief into poetry, illustrating the therapeutic potential of creative expression.

Joy Harjo [17:14]: "It's a book for coming of age... I want to be helpful. I think even in trauma, that's where you learn yourself."

Additionally, Harjo shares her experience performing at the iconic Blue Note in New York, highlighting the interplay between her poetry and music as avenues for personal risk and artistic collaboration.

Joy Harjo [21:06]: "I played a song at the Blue Note... to me that was like bungee jumping from the bridge of the Royal Gorge."

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6. Evolving Beliefs and Spirituality

Harjo reflects on her evolving understanding of God, transitioning from traditional religious representations to a more personal and encompassing spirituality rooted in nature and kindness.

Joy Harjo [27:08]: "The way that I find a peace in it is kindness, is knowing that there's kindness, then it can all make sense."

She envisions a God imbued with immense creativity and love, connecting all forms of life and the natural world.

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7. Connection with the Departed and Ancestral Ties

The conversation delves into Harjo's experiences with loss and feeling connected to loved ones who have passed away. She shares intimate moments of sensing her mother's presence and the enduring bonds with her ancestors.

Joy Harjo [30:31]: "I saw her, like, in my... It was like she was there. And we just talked for a moment... and then she was gone."

Harjo emphasizes the cultural significance of ancestral connections within her community, portraying them as integral to one's existence and continuity.

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8. Cherished Memories and Lasting Joy

In the episode's final segment, Harjo reflects on a profoundly joyful moment: holding her daughter after birth. This memory stands in stark contrast to her earlier struggles, symbolizing hope and the enduring power of love amidst adversity.

Joy Harjo [34:01]: "Holding my daughter after she was born... I was so happy... I wanted her and I welcomed her and I was just so happy."

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Conclusion

Rachel Martin and Joy Harjo's conversation on Wild Card offers listeners an intimate glimpse into Harjo's life, artistry, and the healing powers of creativity. Through her stories and reflections, Harjo illustrates how writing and music can navigate and mend the deepest regrets, fostering transformation and resilience.

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For those seeking inspiration from a master of poetic expression and resilience, this episode is a must-listen. Joy Harjo's insights into the human spirit and the arts provide valuable lessons on overcoming adversity and embracing one's true self.

Transcript

[Rachel Martin]

This message comes from Discover, accepted at 99% of places that take credit cards nationwide. If you don't think so, maybe it's time to face facts. You're stuck in the past. Based on the February 2024 Nielsen report, [e-mail] credit card hey, it's Rachel.

Just a heads up, there's a story about domestic violence in this episode.

[Joy Harjo]

What's the biggest risk you've ever taken recently? To me, this is the biggest risk. I sat in at the Blue Note.

[Rachel Martin]

In New and when you say sat.

[Joy Harjo]

In, I played a song. I played a song to me that was like bungee jumping from the bridge of the Royal Gorge.

[Rachel Martin]

I'm Rachel Martin, and this is Wildcard, the game where cards control the conversation. Each week, my guest answers questions about their life, questions pulled from a deck of cards. They're allowed to skip one question and to flip one question back on me. My guest this week is poet Joy Harjo.

[Joy Harjo]

Every poet kind of has their themes, and I realized mine is transformation. What happens, you know, in those transformative spaces.

[Rachel Martin]

Joy Harjo is one of the most revered poets in the United States, and there are all kinds of reasons why that didn't have to happen. She actually studied pre med in college, but as if to hedge her bets on that particular career choice, she began taking creative writing classes. And in the end, the arts won out. Still, stability be damned, Joy grew up in Oklahoma as part of the Muscogee Creek Nation. But her stepfather forced Joy to suppress her creativity. She wasn't even allowed to sing in the house. That creative spirit could have died inside her. But when she was finally out on her own, she realized that making music and telling stories and writing poetry wasn't just something she wanted to do, it was something she had to do. Since then, she's used her writing to capture the diverse experiences of Native people in this country. And in 2019, the she was named the first Native American US poet laureate. And this spring, she's releasing a new version of her book, for a girl becoming Joy Harjo. Welcome to Wildcard.

[Joy Harjo]

Hi. I'm glad I could be here.

[Rachel Martin]

I'm so glad you could be here, too. Thank you so much for being game to do this.

[Joy Harjo]

It's intriguing and so that that interests me.

[Rachel Martin]

All right, let's go. First round, memories.

[Joy Harjo]

One middle, two or three? Oh, you already.

[Rachel Martin]

You were already feeling something for the middle. You're already feeling it. Okay. Where would you go when you needed to escape as a teenager?

[Joy Harjo]

As a kid, I would escape into the closet as A little kid and I. My drawings, they're probably still in that closet or outside. You know, I would go out at times when everyone was asleep or the world was quiet, and I still like that. That's where I find things. That's where I find images and sounds and fresh ideas. That's how I discover, I guess you could say, a kind of peacefulness, but also a kind of depth that isn't always present when you're in the realm of chatter.

[Rachel Martin]

Yeah. Is there something in particular that you felt that you needed to get away from when you were an adolescent, or was it just adolescence?

[Joy Harjo]

Yeah, I needed to get away from adolescence. I know. I always feel for those kids when I've gone in and talked to them and vibe with them, because, you know, I still. That's. I still understand that period, which is a time of. I think of adolescence as being like a chrysalis moment. Like, here you've got the caterpillar and eating leaves and experiencing the world as a caterpillar. And then they build this chrysalis. And the chrysalis is where they essentially liquefy and then reform. So it's a time of chaotic form, of, you know, I was this. But I'm going to be something else. And I would imagine in that chrysalis period, the known parameters have fallen away to some extent. To some extent. And then the butterfly emerges. And that's how I think of adolescence, is being in the chrysalis kind of being in that chrysalis stage. But in that stage is a lot of innate power. Anytime, a transformation, you know, whether it's a transformation of a country, you know, transformation of a human being or of a butterfly, you know, a caterpillar becoming a butterfly. There's a lot of power, creative power, in that.

[Rachel Martin]

But I'm. I'm fixated on that closet for some reason. What did the closet look like?

[Joy Harjo]

I could go in and it had a door that shut, you know, with a door handle on it. So I could go in there and sit. I would sit on the wood floor because, you know, I didn't have a chair in there, of course. And I could sit in there and have peace. And, you know that people aren't going to come looking for you. Like, you know, they might look for you elsewhere. But, you know, we would. If my mother. And I know she wouldn't like me saying this because she's proud of me and what I've done, but if she saw us with books, she'd say, get up and do something.

[Rachel Martin]

Oh, interesting.

[Joy Harjo]

Yes, that we had to be doing something. Yeah, yeah. We needed to be doing something because there was always so much to be done in a household with all of those kids. So I understand that. But I wasn't in there to escape doing things because I contributed. I was there for my own peace of mind.

[Rachel Martin]

Yeah.

[Joy Harjo]

Yeah.

[Rachel Martin]

Okay, next. Three. One, Two or three.

[Joy Harjo]

One. One.

[Rachel Martin]

What's a place that shaped you as much as any person did?

[Joy Harjo]

That's interesting. That's like. It's related. It's like falls right in line with the first one. What place shaped me? You know, the places that shaped me. Okay, a couple. There's places on the physical realm and places in the dreaming realm.

[Rachel Martin]

Tell me about balls.

[Joy Harjo]

In the physical realm. Was going to the lake, like my father. I loved the water. So we would go over to Fort Gibson Lake. My mom would cook fried chicken, mashed potatoes, all that really good stuff. But again, it was taking us out of the ordinary in a way. Taking us out of the ordinary world to the water, the place of water. I think of my father. I think we all have predominant elements in our being. And my father, I've always felt, was more water, and my mother was more fire. And I love. I feel like I'm both. I'm very much both.

[Rachel Martin]

It makes sense to me what you said. It was taking you out of your regular life. Like, regular life was busy, you had a bunch of siblings, that there was a lot of household work to do, just the work of being alive. And that was taking you out of that.

[Joy Harjo]

Yeah. So the other place is in my dreaming realm. And I've dreamed, even as a little kid, I would dream places that I didn't know the names. I would come back knowing names of places, and I still do that. That I didn't know. You know, there was no way. Maybe I was 4 years old or 3 years old and I didn't know the name of those places, but I would come back knowing those places because I had gone there in the dreaming realm and experienced life in a very, very different way.

[Rachel Martin]

It's been a long time, but do you remember. Do you remember a specific dream you had as a child that evoked that for you? A place you didn't know of, and then you came back knowing it?

[Joy Harjo]

Yes, I'm trying to remember. It was in Egypt, and it was a long time ago, and it was like I was with different people and I was somebody else. But they made a kind of prison out of, like, adobe. And you could see the prisoners faces through the adobe, and they had basically cemented them into this wall. It was really horrible way to deal with people. Wow. You know, it was long before I even read about it. I didn't know there was an Egypt. I mean, I was a little kid.

[Rachel Martin]

Yeah.

[Joy Harjo]

I was a little kid in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

[Rachel Martin]

But dreaming like that as a child, then did dreaming become something that was a little bit scary to you, or did you look forward to it because it was going to transport you places?

[Joy Harjo]

I liked going places, like going to the moon or flying. You know, like having that sense of flying somewhere. I mean, it still happens.

[Rachel Martin]

Yeah.

[Joy Harjo]

You know, it still happens. And I don't really understand it, except that it's made me realize that we're in it deep and there's so many layers to consciousness.

[Rachel Martin]

Yeah.

[Joy Harjo]

Thank you for that.

[Rachel Martin]

Okay, last one in this round. One, two or three.

[Joy Harjo]

Oh, this is only. This is just the first round.

[Rachel Martin]

This is the first round. Joy, you gotta hydrate.

[Joy Harjo]

I'm going to go in the middle again.

[Rachel Martin]

What was a moment in your life when you could have chosen a different path?

[Joy Harjo]

There have been some major crossroads. My mother took me. I was about 15 or 16 when she took me to the Bureau of Indian affairs office and told them that I was. I was going to go to Chilocco Indian School, which is a decent Indian school up near the border of Oklahoma and Kansas. And actually, my husband went there, and I would have met him earlier, but as I was. We were going out. This was a major crossroads. As we were going out the door, the agent said, we have a new school, it's out in Santa Fe, called the Institute of American Indian Arts. And it was then mostly a high school, and it was for the arts. So I applied with art, with drawings, and got in. And so it was either that if I had not gone there, if I had stayed there, it would have come to no good.

[Rachel Martin]

Can you tell me why?

[Joy Harjo]

Oh, it was. I had really kind of. I had lost any regard for myself because of what I had gone through. At that point, I just felt almost worthless. I think part of it was I watched what happened with my father, Muskogee Creek man in the world. You know, being native in Oklahoma and the whole deep history there. There was a heartache there, I think, a deep heartache. And then there was the stepfather coming into our lives, who. I've tried to understand him, but he really had no regard for our lives. His interest, of course, was my mother. And it seems like repressing her, Repressing her and in turn, repressing us. And people don't do well under being oppressed in whether it's by a country or by a person. But when I wound up at that school with native students from all over, we were all artists and doing art, I was in my realm. I was in my realm of creativity and people who, you know, I could talk in class there. I could not talk in class elsewhere. Just that there was. I felt I was in my place and before I had felt almost misplaced. Mm.

[Rachel Martin]

Did that division become more stark, though, when you went to the. To the art school and then presumably you still came home to see your mom and did it feel worse knowing that there was this other life that you were. That you had access to now and his behaviors were all the more egregious because you had something to compare it to?

[Joy Harjo]

Well, I had something with my life as my dad. And, well, that, you know, I mean, that wasn't a walk in a park because he was so good looking and women were always after him and he, you know, that it had his problems, but they were my parents and they loved each other. And there was music. It was maybe healthy dysfunction, I don't know. You know, there was dysfunction, but there wasn't the mean spiritedness and the cruelty. I mean, I came home one night and my brothers and sister were huddled in my room because they had watched him make my mother play Russian roulette in front of them.

[Rachel Martin]

Oh, my God.

[Joy Harjo]

And I got there and they were terrified. And I was terrified for my mother. I felt like her guardian and I, you know, so I felt a little guilty leaving. But at that point, by the time I left, she had kind of gone over to his side in a way, maybe to survive. I think to survive. Because I always knew that it was different because I always knew my parents loved me. And that makes a difference. That makes a difference in your force field if you know that whatever happens, that they love you. So I knew there was that and I had that to go on, but to deal with the other and to watch things go down. But I, you know, and. But I couldn't protect anybody. Yeah, I already learned. I already learned that I couldn't protect them. So, you know, sometimes I feel bad that I wasn't the magnanimous maternal, you know, staying there like the mother hen, but it's not me.

[Rachel Martin]

What a wonderful thing that you found that school.

[Joy Harjo]

Yeah, it was. It saved my life. I'm still part of it. I later taught there, but overall, it was, you know, amazing. The late 60s. Santa Fe, New Mexico, and art and being able to do art and be who you are.

[Rachel Martin]

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I want to push back from the game for a minute because I want to talk about the new version of your very, very beautiful book. It is called For a Girl Becoming. You published this originally in 2009, right?

[Joy Harjo]

Yes.

[Rachel Martin]

And how do you describe the story that's embedded in this?

[Joy Harjo]

That book came out with my first granddaughter.

[Rachel Martin]

Is that right?

[Joy Harjo]

Yeah. My first grandchild, my first granddaughter Christa. And for A Girl Becoming is kind of a children's book, but it goes beyond that. It's a book for coming of age. It's a book for and I seem to land on that period a lot. And I think it's because I went through so much during that coming of age period. Maybe I'm just working out trauma, but I want to be helpful. I think even in trauma, that's where you learn yourself.

[Rachel Martin]

Yeah.

[Joy Harjo]

Really. It's challenge. That's where you learn yourself and who you are and what you're made of. So when this granddaughter hit that age, I wrote For a girl becoming the poem in there for her.

[Rachel Martin]

What struck me about it is as I was reading, gave me such a sense of security. Like just Thinking about how this young girl is born and brought into the world and. And the illustrations are so gorgeous. But your writing and the illustrations leave you with the sense that this young new being is just. Has been woven into this beautiful, beautiful tapestry of her family, and everybody's just gonna be there for her. It just. It doesn't matter what hard things come and all the hard things will come, but it was just this precious feeling of safety that I got from reading this story. Through the whole thing, I thought, what a beautiful gift to give a child that sense of safety, which feels all the more profound thinking about your own childhood and how unsafe you felt.

[Joy Harjo]

Yeah, if you put it that way, that makes a lot of sense. But there's themes. Every poet kind of has their themes, and I realized mine is transformation. One of them is healing and justice and transformation, what happens in those transformative spaces. So I have another book out at the same time called Washing My Mother's Body, because I didn't get to wash my mother's body when she died. And I wanted to, but I let that go because it was causing too much commotion. And this poem comes. I never got to wash my mother's body. And so poems teach you. And this poem taught me that I could do it in a poem. And in the poem, I do what I wasn't able to do in the physical, but I. I went and washed her body in the poem.

[Rachel Martin]

Oh, that's.

[Joy Harjo]

And it's sort of. It's similar to. For a girl, these doorways of transformation that we walk through. And I feel like when I've walked through them, I haven't been the best, you know? What do you mean? I hit the walls. Awkward. Too many elbows. Not too many. I'm glad I have them.

[Rachel Martin]

I mean, do any of us walk through those doorways gracefully? Those transformative mom, like, it's always awkward.

[Joy Harjo]

Yeah. Yeah. But I love.

[Rachel Martin]

I love that you shared that in. In your poetry. You can. You can do the things that you weren't able to do. The first go around. It's a second chance.

[Joy Harjo]

But I think it's not the poet. Just for me, the poet. But I think that's something useful for anyone that you can sit in and, you know, you might do it through painting or with a song or. Or writing, because we all have things we say we regret or people who go, we can't talk to. And you can do it. You can sit and write it and talk to them.

[Rachel Martin]

Thank you for that. The book is beautiful.

[Joy Harjo]

We have more cards.

[Rachel Martin]

Yes.

[Joy Harjo]

Joy, do we have More cards.

[Rachel Martin]

Round two. Insights. Three new cards. One, two or three?

[Joy Harjo]

Three. We'll do three. Three. What's the biggest risk you've ever taken recently? I. I sat in. To me, this is the biggest risk. I sat in at. At the Blue Note in New York. You.

[Rachel Martin]

Okay, so now. And when you say sat in, you mean you played.

[Joy Harjo]

I played a song. I played a song. So we need the context of this and that. Terrified.

[Rachel Martin]

You are a musician. You played the saxophone, right?

[Joy Harjo]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Rachel Martin]

So that's. You played the saxophone at the Blue Note.

[Joy Harjo]

I did. I have. I'm friends with Esperanza Spalding and she was doing a two week run at the Blue Note. She sold out, I think every show. Yeah, I mean, that's. She's incredible. She's just. She's a. She's incredible and she's real. I mean, that's the thing about. I think what maybe is that she's absolutely who she is. She's very generous and very humble and is a mute. She's in that space. And I'd played with her. We just, you know, improv. We're friends. Yeah. And. But this is different. Oh yeah. I mean, she said, oh, why don't you sit. Do a song, you know, do a piece with, you know, with her guitar player who, you know, and the drummer. And so I couldn't say no. I mean, I thought about it.

[Rachel Martin]

Of course not.

[Joy Harjo]

No, I thought about it. I mean, I thought about saying no. Well, what would I feel like if I said no? Well, I would feel. I would feel very disappointed, like I should have done it. And I don't want any should haves. But I'm sitting down there in one of the seats with my horn on my lap waiting to be called up and I'm thinking, what if my horn messes up? So then you have to have. It's a Blue dog.

[Rachel Martin]

It's just like the most world famous jazz club I know.

[Joy Harjo]

I love that club. I often go there. If I go to New York, that's where. Maybe that's where I should go tonight.

[Rachel Martin]

But you got over your nerves. You got on stage and you did it.

[Joy Harjo]

Yeah, I sat there with my horn and I got up there. But then the thing I've learned. Cause I used to have a horrible stage fright. It was bad enough when I was just doing poetry and then I picked up horn when I was almost 40 and learned to play mostly on stage. But the thing I learned was that if I just listen to the music, and that's even if I'm just Reading or even doing Wild Card that if I just listen to the music, I'm okay. But I did it. You did it, Joy. No, to me that was like bungee jumping from the bridge at the Royal Gorge.

[Rachel Martin]

I feel like playing the sax with Ezra Eldis Safer and probably a bigger high, frankly.

[Joy Harjo]

Yeah. I mean they were just wonderful musicians and just to be. And the thing I was taught early on is to play with people better than you.

[Rachel Martin]

Yeah. That's how you grow.

[Joy Harjo]

Yeah.

[Rachel Martin]

Okay, three more. One, two, three.

[Joy Harjo]

Let's do the three again. Three. Yeah.

[Rachel Martin]

Oh, I'm so glad this one came up. Is the music you listen to happier or sadder than you are?

[Joy Harjo]

I'm like, well, like, okay, there's two. There's several parts of me. I'm like. My mother used to write music and she would write these really kind of sad ballads. However, she wrote a song that my. My sister just gave it to me and it was. She typed it out. She didn't capitalize everything. And I love the way she wrote jazz J A S S. This was in the early 50s. It's called my Guy. We just recorded that song with Esperanza. We just recorded it.

[Rachel Martin]

Wow.

[Joy Harjo]

For my next album from Turquoise and it's so cool. It's my mother's song. So that's an up one most of. And I like that because it's so up. And most of her songs were these really heartbreak ballads. Sort of like Patsy Cline and Crazy and I love those scraping the bottom of your heart ballads. You know, naturally I'm hearing you say.

[Rachel Martin]

You'Re in for the whole gambit. You're in for the whole thing. All the emotions.

[Joy Harjo]

Yeah. Nat King Cole and then I like funk. My most played artist on my is James Brown. I mean, can't go wrong.

[Rachel Martin]

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[Rachel Martin]

We'Re in the last round. This is the beliefs round. Sort of touched on beliefs throughout the whole thing, though.

[Joy Harjo]

But, yeah, they're gonna get more pointed. Well, we're in it. It is pointed. I keep thinking a lot of the problems we have going on right now are because of belief systems, you know, how powerful. I keep thinking about how powerful and potent beliefs are.

[Rachel Martin]

Let's get at it in specifics.

[Joy Harjo]

The middle.

[Rachel Martin]

The middle.

[Joy Harjo]

Number two. Number two. Okay, here we go.

[Rachel Martin]

How have your feelings about God changed over time?

[Joy Harjo]

Tremendously. If I think about God before there were words, it has to do with the sunlight or the rainbows and sunlight or that kind of joy, a kind of resonance that goes through everything. And I think kids have that. And then I remember, you know, going to church and God being very much like an image of Jesus or Illust or an illustration of an elderly white man. And that was the next implanted image of God. And then there were qualities given to this God or that they were always angry with you or that you would always be guilty in their presence. So that was the second version, which didn't really sit right with me because, you know, in our Muskogee tradition, and I think in, you know, we were created by love. I remember my husband and I sometimes will lay there and just talk for hours, even now. And we're laying there talking, and I said, you know, I think about why were we created with. You think about the human, the system, all of the systems in our body and the magnificence of it and how everything works together. And then all of it, the insects, the birds, and all of this is going on. And I think I can be overwhelmed and think, why? I mean, we all ask those questions. I mean, why? Why these systems? Why. Why this driving? Why do we go through, you know, all the challenges? Why evil? I mean, why all of this? And the way that I find a peace in it is kindness, is knowing that there's kindness, then it can all make sense that, okay, you know, all of this can go on, but the path of kindness will bring, you know, it brings a different kind of nourishment.

[Rachel Martin]

Is that the third version of God, then? Is that the present version for you?

[Joy Harjo]

Probably, yes. Yeah, I think that's more the present, where there's an. It's, again, an immense creator, an immense creativity, but it's imbued with what we call anagachka, with a love that is so potent and powerful. It's powerful. It's not just, you know, it's not weak. It's very powerful. And it connects everybody. And when I say everybody, I also mean the winds, the plants, the animals, each of us. So that's where I am now. Yeah, that could change.

[Rachel Martin]

Yeah. Okay. Three more cards. One, two, or three.

[Joy Harjo]

What are you feeling between two and three? I'll go with three.

[Rachel Martin]

When do you feel connected to the people you've lost?

[Joy Harjo]

Frequently. Yeah. It's. You know, it's funny, the older I get, then I talk a little bit more about things I usually wouldn't talk about.

[Rachel Martin]

I think that's true for me, too.

[Joy Harjo]

In 2011, I helped my mother pass. My mother's around all the time, but it was not long after that, and my cousin died. And they said she died in a chair. She was just sitting there. And, you know, she had different health problems. My age, though, and this was about 10, 11, 12 years ago. And so I went to her funeral. My sister and I went to her funeral, and I was amazed that she looked. She just looked. She looked almost like she was going to stand up and walk out of there. Well, a few years ago, I'm just laying there right before I go to sleep, and there she was. And we just talked. We just talked for a moment and said, hey, it wasn't freaky. I mean, I saw her, like, in my. It was like she was there. And we just said, hey, how are you doing? I said, yeah, you know, at your funeral, you just. You didn't even look like you were dead. We just talked for a moment, and then she was gone. She was just visiting. And then there's some people that you would really like. My father. My father doesn't come to me that much. One time I was sitting. I was going through something and was living in New Mexico, and I'm sitting there real quiet. That's when you can often, you know, you can hear them. I was sitting there real quiet, and my father came and said, I'm so proud of you. And the other day, it was on his birthday, February 28th. And I was really wanting to hear from. I didn't hear anything, but that's, you know, I figured. I get a sense that he's. He's not around. My mother is around, though. I mean, people are. People are different. Yeah, but they're always. You know, we do talk about our ancestors, at least in our culture, and I think, you know, we. Obviously, by the time you're a great. I'm a great grandparent now, is you see things and, you know, things go on. You watch them reappear. You know, you watch things reappear in the children and the grandchildren and the great grandchildren and, you know, it goes on that there's a continuum and you start to see, get. You get insight, little insights into the whole thing. And so they're around, you know, some of them, some closer, some not. But I feel like I. I stay in touch with that. Some people don't. Some people, it's not in their realm. You talk about belief systems. It's not in their realm of belief, even though somebody might be standing right by them, wanting to talk to them, you know, or say. Or. They find ways to do it, you know, and they find ways to do it. But, yeah, I think it's just part of living.

[Rachel Martin]

We end the show the same way every time with a trip in our memory time machine in which you travel to one moment from your past. It is not a moment that you want to change anything about. It's just a moment you would like to linger in a little longer. What moment do you choose?

[Joy Harjo]

Now I'm going to cry. Holding my daughter after she was born.

[Rachel Martin]

Can you share any more details about that moment? Where you were, what she smelled like, what you were looking at?

[Joy Harjo]

Yeah. Then I think of my son too, you know, But I say my daughter because I lost her resolve.

[Rachel Martin]

Oh, I'm so sorry.

[Joy Harjo]

Oh, I'm so often, what I do often when I do, I go back to when she was a baby and that's. But I was so happy. And I know that she would rather me think of happiness. She would rather have me think of happiness. Yeah, she's made that clear. Yeah. And I was so happy, you know, I mean, it's funny, it made no sense that I had a child at that time, but her spirit came to me and I, you know, and I was so. Even though I was going through. Going through stuff, I don't need to go into that right now. But when she was born, in the midst of all of this, you know, Wounded knee was going on and you know, a lot of challenges, but it was just I said yes and I I wanted her and I welcomed her and I was just so happy.

[Rachel Martin]

Joy Harjo, it has been such a pleasure to get to share this time with you. Thank you so much.

[Joy Harjo]

Thank you. I this was fun, kind of.

[Rachel Martin]

If you enjoyed this conversation, I think you should check out my episode with another poet, Hanif Abdurraqib. Like Joy, Hanif has this really thoughtful and deliberate way of speaking and the answers that he gave to the Wild Card questions that I asked really take you on a journey. It's definitely worth a listen. This episode was produced by Lee Hale and edited by Dave Blanchard with help from Romel Wood. It was mastered by Patrick Murray. Wildcard's Executive producer is Yolanda Sangweni. Our theme music is by Ramtin Arablouei. You can reach out to [e-mail] we're going to shuffle the deck and be back with more next week. Talk to you then.

[D]

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[Rachel Martin]

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