Reflections of Joy Harjo
On November ninth 2009, I attended my very first poetry reading at a local community college. There, I listened to award winning poet, Joy Harjo, give a seasoned performance which included reading poetry, playing musical instruments, and allowed for a question and answer session.
To start, the small auditorium was dimly lit, and only a weak light illuminated the sole podium placed at the center of the small stage. As Joy Harjo, took to the stage to begin her performance, I noticed she is a tall woman who was dressed in black. Her long helmet of flowing dark hair created a shadowy cavern for her facial features to partially hide under. Though partially hidden, her wonderful Native American facial features were easily recognized. From the beginning of her performance, Joy Harjo’s tone came across as being very spiritual; it showed in her choice of words and music. And as her performance continued, she spoke about her life in between acts. She let the audience know she had traveled the world, and shared some of her past experiences. One memory she shared, was of a very young naďve looking girl in Europe who surprised her by playing the saxophone like she had played it for a gifted lifetime, and yet another story was of a tiny roly-poly bug in India that elevated her spirit when it needed to be lifted. Of all the award winning poems she read that day, I liked, She Had Some Horses. This poem seem to represent the trials and tribulations, “or issues” that have haunted her lifetime. I believe child abuse, a past drug addiction, and abusive men were just some of the metaphorical horses that she so emotionally referred to in this telling poem.
She also interrupted her readings by playing either the saxophone or Native American flute. This seemed to work by allowing the audience a chance to pause and reflect on what she had just read to them. While I liked listening to her play the saxophone, I found a more spiritual connection listening to her play the Native American flute. It was mellow music that played to my soul, music that magically changed the cold morbid auditorium of the present, into warm open plains, plains grazing with buffalos and alive with the unadulterated Native peoples of America’s past. The flute seems to have an ability to change time and place with its magical notes.
Near the end of her performance, during the question and answer session, her response to one mistaken question posed by a young attendee interested me. The student had asked what she thought would happen at the end of the Aztec calendar on December twenty-first, 2012. The student either misspoke or didn’t realize that it will be the Mayan, calendar which will expire on the twenty-first of December 2012, not the Aztec’s. Many people think the end of the Mayan calendar might represent a doomsday date for Earth. I thought I would hear some moans from the crowd from such a question being asked, but there was morbid silence, maybe due to the current state of the world. I really didn’t expect her to answer the question, but she did. I’m not quoting her, but she basically said that something is going to happen. She referenced how the polar icecap was melting, and how the storms where she lives, along with other parts of the world, had recently been the worst in recorded history. I remember thinking how you don’t have to be a spiritual person to realize something is physically and mentally wrong with the world right now. I believe most people can feel it in their gut, and I expect that accounted for the gloomy silence. She finished her answer by explaining how these drastic environmental changes are most likely the precursors of a major change coming to the world. Soon after answering that question her performance finished. In the end, I thoroughly enjoyed listening to her read, play the flute, and reflect on her life, and would gladly listen to her or another poet, if the chance should ever present itself, again.
William Bailey
