After a successful series of events throughout the fall, the Morongo Basin Big Read ended this year’s events Monday at the Joshua Tree Retreat Center with “An Evening with Joy Harjo.” Assignment reporter Chris Fleischman attended the poetry reading…
After the event was initially canceled due to a personal emergency, the 2021 Morongo Basin Big Read ended by welcoming three-time United States Poet Laureate and author of “American Sunrise,” Joy Harjo, to the Joshua Tree Retreat Center on Monday (December 13). The evening began with a blessing handed down from Serrano and Cahuilla traditions before Harjo began reciting selections of her work. She began with her poem “Welcoming Song,” which she performed with bass accompaniment in its original Mvskoke language. She later read a poem which is not found in “American Sunrise” titled “For Calling the Spirit Back from Wandering the Earth in Its Human Feet,” a poem which exemplifies Harjo’s reverential treatment of the earth and its restorative potential for humanity. Harjo read some poetry from her newer collections, as well as several other poems from “American Sunrise.” She related the difficulty of reading one particular poem, “How to Write a Poem in a Time of War,” due to its use of two speakers and the depiction of the violence of war. The poem, she explained, was one of the first she wrote in the collection, as one of the speakers agonizes over where to “begin” in the face of the violence of war. The poem, inspired in part by coverage of civilian casualties in Syria in 2017, presents a disorienting, visceral tableau of war. The evening concluded with Harjo reciting a poem entitled “Without,” which she related was written after an unvaccinated relative of hers died of COVID-19. After a night of moving poetry and music, those in attendance showed their appreciation with a standing ovation.
https://poets.org/poem/calling-spirit-back-wandering-earth-its-human-feet
