Joy Harjo - Life

Life

Known primarily as a poet, Harjo has also taught at the college level, played alto saxophone with a band called Poetic Justice, edited literary journals, and written screenplays.

Harjo is a member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation and is of Cherokee descent. She is a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa.

In 1995, Harjo received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native Writers' Circle of the Americas.

In 2002, Harjo received the PEN Open Book Award, formerly known as the Beyond Margins Award for A Map to the Next World: Poetry and Tales

Harjo will join the faculty of the American Indian Studies Program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in January 2013.

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