A “raw and honest” (Los Angeles Review of Books) memoir from the first Native American Poet Laureate of the United States. In this transcendent memoir, grounded in tribal myth and ancestry, music and poetry, Joy Harjo details her journey to becoming a poet. Born in Oklahoma, the end place of the Trail of Tears, Harjo
A “raw and honest” (Los Angeles Review of Books) memoir from the first Native American Poet Laureate of the United States.
In this transcendent memoir, grounded in tribal myth and ancestry, music and poetry, Joy Harjo details her journey to becoming a poet. Born in Oklahoma, the end place of the Trail of Tears, Harjo grew up learning to dodge an abusive stepfather by finding shelter in her imagination, a deep spiritual life, and connection with the natural world. Narrating the complexities of betrayal and love, Crazy Brave is a haunting, visionary memoir about family and the breaking apart necessary in finding a voice.
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An antidote to all the BS I have read Harjo much of my life and share a strong tie to NM and UNM with her. This memoir has a delicacy and unpretentiousness to it that is refreshing, along with the use of Native constructs (four directions, the line between what whites call “Fact” and “Fiction”) to tell her story. The section on Santa Fe and her time there serves also as an interesting social history of that town, that school, at that time. The beatings, the abuse, the racism, the sexism – none of this surprises me and I…
A Native American Woman Facing The Worst Of Hardships At first, the Memoir by Joy Harjo seems slow and too simple. Then, her life began to change. From that point on, I never put “Crazy Brave” down. She gives a clear painting of the hardships any Native American woman might face. As she faces them, she dreams about a creative transformation in her life. Along the way, there is the life of the whole Creek, Cherokee and Irish family. There are the children and the men in this woman’s life. We see what it is like for all of them to live with and…
My book club members enjoyed it! I was so inspired by her poetry and this first novel. I delighted in it and felt determined to continue to remain grounded in my traditions and beliefs. My Ashanti worldview and her Crew worldview had some similarities, especially when she wrote about her dreams and described her observations when she was not yet in this world.