Press Release

Joy Harjo, Poet Laureate of the United States, has graciously accepted to be an honorary member of the International Advisory Board of ICHRRF. She brings with her tremendous wisdom, literary, musical and artistic talent and her lived experience as a Native American intellectual. She will serve as a beacon of hope, guidance and determination for social justice to our team.

Joy Harjo is an internationally renowned performer and writer of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, appointed the 23rd Poet Laureate of the United States in 2019. Harjo is the author of nine books of poetry, including her most recent, the highly acclaimed American Sunrise (2019), and Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings (2015), which was shortlisted for the Griffin Prize and named a Notable Book of the Year by the American Library Association. She has published two award-winning children’s books, several screenplays, anthologies, and collections of prose interviews, three plays, and two memoirs, Crazy Brave, awarded the PEN USA Literary Award in Creative Non Fiction and the American Book Award, and the forthcoming Poet Warrior: A Call for Love and Justice.

Her many honors include the Ruth Lily Prize for Lifetime Achievement from the Poetry Foundation, the Academy of American Poets Wallace Stevens Award, a PEN USA Literary Award, Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Fund Writers’ Award, a Rasmuson US Artist Fellowship, two NEA fellowships, and a Guggenheim Fellowship.

She is Exec­u­tive Edi­tor of the anthol­o­gy When the Light of the World was Sub­dued, Our Songs Came Through — A Nor­ton Anthol­o­gy of Native Nations Poet­ry and the editor of Living Nations, Living Words: An Anthology of First Peoples Poetry, the companion anthology to her signature Poet Laureate project featuring a sampling of work by 47 Native Nations poets through an interactive ArcGIS Story Map and a newly developed Library of Congress audio collection.

As a musician and performer, Harjo has produced six award-winning music albums including Winding Through the Milky Way, for which she was awarded a NAMMY for Best Female Artist of the year, and her newest, I Pray for My Enemies, released from Sunyata Records in 2021.

She is a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, Board of Directors Chair of the Native Arts & Cultures Foundation, and holds a Tulsa Artist Fellowship. She lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma.