The Woman Who Fell from the Sky
Poems
Joy Harjo, one of this country's foremost Native American voices, combines elements of storytelling, prayer, and song, informed by her interest in jazz and by her North American tribal background, in this, her fourth volume of poetry. She draws from the Native American tradition of praising the land and the spirit, the realities of American culture, and the concept of feminine individuality.
Dancing children, the attempt to heal a broken life, rising moons, and blue horses turning into streaks of lightning are the images Harjo uses to spin her yarns, and her words are spellbinding.
Her talent is manifest in "A Postcolonial Tale": "Every day is a reenactment of the creation story. We emerge from dense unspeakable material, through the shimmering power of dreaming stuff."
. . .her writing is infused with a generosity of spirit that accounts for much of her appeal.
"I turn and return to Harjo's poetry for her breathtaking, complex witness and for her world-remaking language: precise, unsentimental, miraculous."
—Adrienne Rich
"I fell in love with these poems, with their clarity and light, their wisdom born somewhere between sky and earth."
—Sandra Cisneros
