Book description
Joy Harjo is a "poet-healer-philosopher-saxophonist," and one
of the most powerful Native American voices of her generation. She has
spent the past two decades exploring her place in poetry, music,
dance/performance, and art. Soul Talk, Song Language gathers together in
one complete collection many of these explorations and conversations.
Through an eclectic assortment of media, including personal essays,
interviews, and newspaper columns, Harjo reflects upon the nuances and
development of her art, the importance of her origins, and the arduous
reconstructions of the tribal past, as well as the dramatic
confrontation between Native American and Anglo civilizations. Harjo
takes us on a journey into her identity as a woman and an artist, poised
between poetry and music, encompassing tribal heritage and reassessments
and comparisons with the American cultural patrimony. She presents
herself in an exquisitely literary context that is rooted in ritual and
ceremony and veers over the edge where language becomes music.
"Soul Talk, Song Language gathers, makes, and shares stories that
extend our vision of her work in and out of Indian Country."--Susan
Bernardin, World Literature Today JOY HARJO is a multitalented artist
of the Mvskoke/Creek Nation. She is an internationally known poet,
performer, writer, and musician. She has published seven books of
acclaimed poetry including She Had Some Horses, In Mad Love and War, The
Woman Who Fell from the Sky, and How We Became Human: New and Selected
Poems. She has produced five award-winning albums of music and poetry
including Letter from the End of the Twentieth Century, Winding through
the Milky Way, and Red Dreams: A Trail Beyond Tears. She lives in
Albuquerque, New Mexico. TANAYA WINDER is a poet from the Duckwater
Shoshone and Southern Ute nations. She is pursuing an MFA in poetry from
University of New Mexico and working on her first collection of poetry.
LAURA COLTELLI is a professor of American literature at the University
of Pisa, Italy. Her publications include Winged Words, American Indian
Writers Speak, and an edited collection of essays, Reading Leslie Marmon
Silko.
