Annotated Bibliography and Essay: Joy Harjo Carnes, Jeremy M. “Reinventing the Enemy’s Intentions: Native Identity and the City in the Poetry of Joy Harjo.” Studies in the Humanities, vol. 42, no. 1–2, Dec. 2015, pp. 36–59. EBSCOhost, augie.idm.oclc.org/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=mzh&AN=2017305739&site=ehost-live&scope=site.
In “Reinventing the Enemy’s Intentions: Native Identity and the City in the Poetry of Joy Harjo,” Jeremy Carnes analyzes the poems of Native Joy Harjo, to argue that amidst a culture where American customs are imposed upon minorities, Native Americans can identify under the united identity of Native and American culture, rather than the separated identity of either Native or American culture. To accomplish his argument, Carnes focuses on two major concepts that are important for Natives maintain within the blending of the two cultures: “Native identity and Native relationships to land” (38). Carnes first stresses the importance of Natives continuing to practice their cultural beliefs and traditions to uphold their Native identity. Second, he states that land and nature are vital aspects to the Natives’ culture due to their belief that humans are a part of nature rather than an owner of nature—humans and nature are two things that are seen as equal in the Native eye and seen as separate in the western eye. This has led the government to separate the Natives from their tribal land in hopes of dismantling their Native identity and homogenize them into American customs. However, in spite of the relocation, the Natives prevailed and use these new locations as opportunities to expand their identity to new lands. Maintaining the Native identity and the Native relationship to the land, in addition to adopting the American culture, led Carnes to conclude that Natives do not have to endure an “either/or” relationship with American culture but instead can live a “both/and” relationship between the two cultures (37).
Carnes is a Ph. D. student at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee where he studies and researches American Indian literature. His advanced studies and thorough research on Native literature designate him as a credible author on Native culture. In addition to his profound credentials, Carnes supports his arguments with direct references and quotes from Native Joy Harjo’s poetry, advancing his credibility. In “Reinventing the Enemy’s Intentions: Native Identity and the City in the Poetry of Joy Harjo,” Carnes speaks to Natives in the western civilization as he emphasizes the ability for them to cross their identities with the American culture rather than allowing the American mainstream destroy their Native identity. He supports his argument through Harjo’s poems—he claims that her poems influence the Natives in pursuing a “both/and” relationship with the American assimilation despite the Natives’ relocation by “[making] use of the [new] city, as a place consistently inventing its present, in order to reinvent the enemy’s intentions” (Carnes 37-38).
Through Carnes’ constant reference to Harjo, we are able to understand how Harjo’s poetry leads Natives to persist through the detrimental Americanization and combine their Native identity with the American culture. Harjo, Joy. The Woman Who Fell from the Sky: Poems. W. W. Norton & Company, 1996. In Joy Harjo’s book of poems, she develops stories that incorporate major themes of the Native identity, the equal relationship between the environment and humans, and the struggles of Native women. Harjo’s Native background and experience with American assimilation led her to base her poetry around the importance of maintaining one’s Native identity while embracing the American culture. She desires to be identified as Native and American rather than Native or American. Secondly, Harjo, along with the Native culture, view the relationship between humans and the environment as one and equal—there is no separation between human and nature. For example, in “The Woman Who Fell From the Sky,” Harjo writes, “Once, the stars made their way down stairs of ice to the earth to find mates. […] [The women] ran off with the stars […] for travel and enlightenment” (8).
This quote displays the close interaction Natives have with the environment, as if the stars are no different than humans. This quote makes it clear to see that Harjo constructs her poems in a narrative style with an abundance of stark imagery and figurative language to create a vivid image in the readers’ minds. These techniques allow Harjo to emphasize the tight-knit relationship between nature and humans. One final theme in Harjo’s poetry includes the struggles that Native women face. As a Native woman, Harjo weaves her experiences of western violence and resilience into her poems to speak to those with similar experience. Joy Harjo graduated from the University of New Mexico and earned a MFA from the Iowa Writers Workshop. She is also a member of the Mvskoke/Creek Nation and incorporates her Native culture into her poems. Harjo’s Native identity and high education makes her a credible poet. Harjo’s poems are important because they relate to the Natives affected by American assimilation and the women affected by oppression. Natives were forced to accept the American lifestyle and abandon their Native land to conform to the American culture.
Harjo’s poem, “The Woman Who Fell From the Sky,” provides an example of how America imposes American culture on Natives: “Johnny was named Johnny by the priests because his Indian name was foreign to their European tongues” (6). Harjo expresses the hardships and unfair treatment that Natives face in the American society. Harjo has the intention to not only comfort the Natives affected by these circumstances but also to raise awareness of Native discrimination to the white population. Harjo additionally discusses the oppression women face and the feeling of worthlessness they receive from society. In Harjo’s poem, “Witness,” Harjo writes of this subjugation, “Soon there were sirens, turning lights and she pulled to a stop at the side of the road. […] They cited her for weaving!” (42). Poetry written on women’s oppression provide solace for women who experience similar discrimination. Harjo’s revolves nearly all her poems around the American invasion on the Native culture, the importance of the environment, and the struggles women face. She expresses Natives’ emotions and reactions in vivid forms through imagery and figurative language. Lang, Nancy.
“‘Twin Gods Bending over’: Joy Harjo and Poetic Memory.” MELUS, vol. 18, no. 3, 1993, pp. 41–49. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/468065. In Nany Lang’s “‘Twin Gods Bending over’: Joy Harjo and Poetic Memory,” Lang discusses how Native Joy Harjo crafts her poetic voice to illustrate two troubling ideas: the oppression that Natives receive amidst the American assimilation and the fears that encompass oppressed women. Lang notes Harjo’s heavy usage of vivid imagery through natural landscapes in order for Harjo to personify the sufferings of Natives and females. Lang believes Harjo uses her writing to argue that the American society continually subjugates Natives and females: Natives are forced to relocate and adopt the American lifestyle, while females are viewed as nearly worthless and inferior to their male counterparts. Lang emphasizes how Harjo stresses women’s fears of helplessness: “Harjo has constructed a folkloric, urban Native American example of every woman’s ultimate fear, the fear of being totally and absolutely frozen and helpless, without the power to speak, unable to function, and therefore not able to choose either life or death for herself” (44).
Throughout this article, Lang deciphers the purpose of Harjo’s poetry to announce the major struggles that are faced by the Natives and females in the American society. Nancy Lang is a professor at Marshall University. Additionally, Lang’s “‘Twin Gods Bending over’: Joy Harjo and Poetic Memory” is well researched and published in a peer-reviewed journal. These two qualities make Lang’s work highly credible. Lang’s article becomes important to the American society as she articulates the battles that the Natives and females face within this American and male oriented culture. Not only does Lang’s writing provide comfort to the Natives and females who endure these struggles, but it also raises awareness to those who do not possess these qualities and allows them to become mindful of their actions and treatment of Natives and women. Lang’s analysis of Harjo’s poems allow readers to unfold the deeper meaning of Native and female oppression that is incorporated into many of Harjo’s poems. For example, in the poem “Witness,” Harjo ends with the comment, “The Indian wars never ended in this country” (qtd. in Lang 43). Harjo directed this statement toward the readers who are blind to Native oppression in hopes that the white population will become more aware of Native discrimination.
Scarry, John. “Representing Real Worlds: The Evolving Poetry of Joy Harjo.” World Literature Today: A Literary Quarterly of the University of Oklahoma, vol. 66, no. 2, 1992, pp. 286–91. EBSCOhost, augie.idm.oclc.org/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=mzh&AN=1992056835&site=ehost-live&scope=site. In John Scarry’s“Representing Real Worlds: The Evolving Poetry of Joy Harjo,” Scarry analyzes the elegance and complexity of Joy Harjo’s Native-themed writing as Harjo, in the words of John F. Crawford, “resist[s] simplicities” of normal poetic writing (qtd. in Scarry 1). Harjo often crafts her poems in a complex, “in motion” manner in which her setting, characters, world, and points of views are all constantly changing (Scarry 2). Although it can be difficult to know the exact moment when one element switches to the next, Scarry notes, Harjo strategically constructs her poems in this manner to reflect the constant motion of the real world (Scarry 2).
To develop this constant motion, great emotion and imagery arises, particularly in Harjo’s “We Must Call a Meeting” as she writes, “I am fragile, a piece of pottery smoked from fire / made of dung, / the design drawn from nightmares. I am an arrow, painted / with lightning / to seek the way to the name of the enemy, / but the arrow has now created / its own language” (qtd. in Scarry 7). Scarry claims that the intimate and powerful imagery displayed in Harjo’s poems, in addition to the complexity of Harjo as author, stems from her wide-array of expertise as not only a poet, but also a musician, politician, and female Native, enabling her to craft insightful poems from multiple viewpoints (2). Jeremy Scarry’s credentials are established as he is a professor at Hostos Community College and his work is well-researched and published in a peer-reviewed journal. His advanced language and citing of well-educated figures additionally develop his credibility and strengthens his analysis of Harjo’s writing. Scarry’s article is important because it describes Harjo as an author and her motives for her complex poems to “resist simplicities” (1). Scarry notes that Harjo has exceptional talent in not only poetry, but also in film and music allow Harjo to carefully craft her writing through multiple perspectives, resulting in striking and insightful imagery throughout her poems. To fully grasp the underlying meaning of Harjo’s poems, it is imperative to recognize the unique elements she incorporates.
Elizabeth Jordahl Dr. Rives ENGL 200 30 November 2018 Research Process Essay In any piece of literature, simply reading the work will typically allow the reader to obtain a relatively shallow grasp on the content. After multiple readings along with research on the piece of literature, readers are able to decipher a deeper meaning and understand new themes and concepts that were previously overlooked. In this project, I studied three secondary sources that analyzed Native poet Joy Harjo and her poems. After locating my initial secondary source, I used the source’s bibliography to find my second source. I repeated this process with my second source to find my third source, resulting in a chain-linked connection between the three sources. This research project unveiled new themes and insights of Joy Harjo as a writer, and I was able to discover the inspiration for her poems. Among the three sources I researched, it was evident that they each “talked” to each other by expanding on concepts noted in the prior sources.
Joy Harjo constructs her poems with the central theme of maintaining a Native identity while adopting American customs within a westernized culture. Each of the three sources I researched were connected through this central theme. However, each source took a different approach and viewed the Native and American relationship in Harjo’s poems from different angles. In the first source I examined, John Scarry analyzes the elegant and emotional imagery Harjo uses to discuss her Native culture. Scarry notes Harjo’s poem, “Summer Night” for illustrating the purity of the Native culture with detailed and delicate imagery: “The moon is nearly full, / the humid air sweet like melon. / Flowers that have cupped the sun all day / dream of iridescent wings / under the long dark sleep” (qtd. in Scarry 7). Nancy Lang, author of my second article, then builds off Scarry’s discussion of vivid imagery to focus on Harjo’s poetic illustration of nature and landscape. She asserts Harjo crafted her imagery beautifully to emphasize the important connection between landscape and the Native culture. In my third article by Jeremy Carnes, Lang’s voice of Native land is evident in the way that Carnes expands on Natives’ value of nature. He claims that a majority of Native identity is present through their land and further explains how the Natives’ forced relocation cannot destroy cultural identity; it can instead be used as an opportunity to expand their identity.
Each subsequent source builds off of ideas present in the previous source to develop Harjo’s central theme of Native identity. As these sources were analyzed together, conversations of Native culture emerged as an underlying theme. They all incorporate Harjo’s poems to explain how the American culture can be merged with Native culture, as opposed to complete isolation between the two cultures. Each article has similar ideas relating to Harjo and her poems but develop their own unique perspective to differentiate those shared thoughts. Scarry’s article began the source chain with his focus on Harjo’s well-rounded attributes as a poet, musician, and film expert—qualities he believes led Harjo to include magnificent imagery in her poems from the multiple perspectives she has gained (2). To explain Harjo’s multiple perspectives, Scarry writes, “It is music, however, that is an even more dominant influence on [Harjo]. […] when she writes poetry she does not start with an image but rather with a sound” (2). Lang then translates Scarry’s remarks on Harjo’s imagery by focusing on the detailed imagery of landscape. Harjo then personifies the landscape and nature to emphasize the importance of the Native land. Lastly, Carnes ends the source chain by additionally discussing the importance of Native land and when maintaining the Native culture in the western society. It was clear to see the conversation of Native identity being conveyed from the initial source to the last source.
As the conversation moved to the next source, the underlying theme was slightly altered and presented in a different fashion. During this project, I learned that in order to create a well-researched paper, it is imperative for scholars to research other sources of similar topics. This allows the scholar to enhance their knowledge in addition to their credibility on the topic. When scholars cite other well-educated researchers, the scholar establishes credibility since their reasoning is supported by other credible researches. In addition, when scholars research others’ work, their perspective may widen. They may obtain different viewpoints on the topic: some that parallel their thoughts and some that oppose their thoughts. As stated previously, those sources that agree can be used to strengthen the scholar’s argument. Additionally, scholars can use the sources that oppose their viewpoint to explain how one could contend such an argument but then ultimately the scholar will refute the entire argument to strengthen their own position. Within the process of choosing sources from the citation chain, I learned to be critical in selecting credible and well-researched sources.
Initially, I looked for titles with Joy Harjo’s name present, and I then proceeded to search for keywords that signaled an analysis of Harjo and her poems. I also searched for works that were current so my sources were relevant. Specifically, I ensured that the first source was published within five years because every subsequent source will clearly be older. Next, I narrowed my source search to strictly peer-reviewed sources. After finding sources that met all of my criteria, I skimmed each source to assess the level of academics at which the work was written. Some sources appeared too elementary whereas others were exceedingly scholarly, making the work extremely difficult to understand. I searched for articles that referenced credible sources and included direct quotes from Harjo or her poems. All of these criteria led me to the credible sources that I have analyzed in my annotated bibliography. Researching multiple sources on Harjo led me to become familiar with Harjo’s background, providing me the motives for her poems.
I learned that Harjo used her Native background and her first hand experience with American assimilation as inspiration for the majority of her poems. Her elegant poems provide other Natives with a beautiful interpretation of the struggles that they are facing. Her poems also serve as an eye-opener to Americans who may not be aware of Natives’ hardships in adapting to the American culture. Americans may be unaware of the fact that Natives have the desire to embrace the American culture only if they are able to combine it with their preexisting Native culture. Knowing Harjo’s intentions for her poems allowed me to draw connections between her poems and other works to understand Harjo’s complex style of writing. Without research on Harjo and her poetry, I would have been unable to fully recognize her poems’ purpose. This could have led me to easily overlook the deeper meanings of her poems.
Poetry can be a challenging literature to understand. Research of the author can give the reader a basis of understanding and prompt one to create connections between the poem and the research completed. Creating a citation chain allowed me to realize the great extent that authors use other sources to support their own argument. An author begins to have a conversation with their researched sources to best support their own argument. It is imperative for authors to utilize scholarly sources that are credible to in turn enhance their own credibility. Researching an author can advance the reader’s knowledge of the author’s background, leading to a better understanding of the author’s intentions for the writing. This can create for a greater knowledge of the topic and an overall better understand of the piece of writing.
