Photo: Matika Wilbur
Photo: Matika Wilbur

Joy Harjo is an internationally renowned performer and writer of the Muscogee Nation. She served three terms as the 23rd Poet Laureate of the United States from 2019-2022 and is winner of the Poetry Society of America's 2024 Frost Medal, Yale's 2023 Bollingen Prize for American Poetry, and was recently honored with a National Humanities Medal.

The author of ten books of poetry, including the highly acclaimed, Weaving Sundown in a Scarlet Light: Fifty Poems for Fifty Years, several plays, children's books, and non-fiction works, and two memoirs, Crazy Brave and Poet Warrior, her many honors include the National Book Critics Circle Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award, the Ruth Lily Prize for Lifetime Achievement from the Poetry Foundation, the Academy of American Poets Wallace Stevens Award, and a Guggenheim Fellowship.

As a musician and performer, Harjo has produced seven award-winning music albums including her newest, I Pray for My Enemies. She has edited three anthologies of Native literature, including When the Light of the World was Sub­dued, Our Songs Came Through — A Nor­ton Anthol­o­gy of Native Nations Poet­ry, Reinventing the Enemy's Language, and Living Nations, Living Words: An Anthology of First Peoples Poetry, the companion anthology to her signature Poet Laureate project.

She served as a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and Board of Directors Chair of the Native Arts & Cultures Foundation, and is the first Artist-in-Residence for Tulsa's Bob Dylan Center. She lives on the Muscogee Nation Reservation in Oklahoma.

From United States Poet Laureate Joy Harjo and Pura Belpré Award–winning illustrator Adriana Garcia: a luminous benediction for a girl’s journey through life, and a celebration of our connections to the world around us.

"A profoundly loving blessing of a book for anyone in a place of becoming"

—Publilshers Weekly

A standout among affirming picture books, this beatitude-inducing work will quickly become the new go-to baby present. A stunningly illustrated, tender, and tenacious message—a boon to any bookshelf.

—Kirkus

A beautifully illustrated edition of Poet Laureate Joy Harjo’s poem “Washing My Mother’s Body,” which offers a way through grief when the loss appears unbearable.

Through lyrical prose and evocative watercolor illustrations by award-winning Muscogee artist Dana Tiger, Washing My Mother’s Body explores the complexity of a daughter’s grief as she reflects on the joys and sorrows of her mother’s life. She lays her mother to rest in the landscape of her memory, honoring the hands that raised her, the body that protected her, and the legs that carried her mother through adversity.

Moving, comforting, and deeply emotional, Washing My Mother’s Body is a tender look at mother-daughter relationships, the complexity of grieving the loss of a parent, and the enduring love of those left behind.


Press: Interviews, Reviews, Articles

April 05, 2025, KOSU
Former U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo discusses new book about grief, collaboration with Muscogee artist

Joy Harjo, the first Native American Poet Laureate in the U.S., is releasing two illustrative books this month, centered around two universal milestones: coming of age and loss. KOSU’s Sarah Liese sat down with Harjo to learn more about her poetry career, writing process and recent collaboration with Dana Tiger.

April 05, 2025, Atmos
People of Heart: Wisdom From This Year’s Bioneers Gathering

“What an amazing and terrible and beautiful story we are all in together. We are all part of what’s going to happen, and we each have a part in which way the story will go.”

—Joy Harjo

April 05, 2025, MyChesCo
Joy Harjo Named First Recipient of André Harvey Creative Fellowship at Longwood Gardens

Joy Harjo, the 23rd United States Poet Laureate and celebrated member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, has been announced as the inaugural recipient of the André Harvey Creative Fellowship.

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