Joy (Foster) Harjo (b. 1951)
Poet, Musician, Author
Last updated 7/15/2017 at 1:10pm

K.B. Schaller
Joy Harjo is Professor of English and American Indian studies at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and has taught in a number of other universities in the United States. She discovered and developed her artistic voice while studying at the Institute of American Indian Arts, earned a BA degree from the University of New Mexico, and her MFA from the University of Iowa's Creative Writers Workshop Program.
"Joy Harjo...transforms personal and collective bitterness to beauty, fragmentation to wholeness, and trauma to healing."
-Alicia Ostiker, Chancellor, Academy of American Poets
Multi-talented artist Joy Harjo is considered as pivotal in the artistic Native American Renaissance during the latter half of the 20th Century. Born Joy Foster in Tulsa, Oklahoma she took her paternal grandmother's surname when she enrolled in the Muscogee (Mvskoke/Creek ) Nation.
She discovered and developed her artistic voice while studying at the Institute of American Indian Arts, earned a BA degree from th...
For access to this article please
sign in or
subscribe.