Internationally Renowned Writer Joy Harjo To Read From Her Work At MGA

Author: Sheron Smith
Posted: Thursday, March 6, 2025 12:00 AM
Categories: School of Arts and Letters | Pressroom | Students | Faculty/Staff | Events- Public

Macon, GA

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In a return visit to Macon, American poet, playwright, and musician Joy Harjo, a member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation and the 23rd U.S. poet laureate, will read from her work at 11 a.m. Thursday, April 24, at Middle Georgia State University (MGA). The reading will take place in the Volleyball Gym on the Macon Campus and is free and open to the public.

Harjo, who served three terms as the 23rd U.S poet laureate, is making her third appearance at MGA. The Oklahoma-born writer and musician is a member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, which has ancestral ties to what is now Ocmulgee Mounds National Historical Park in Macon.

The author of 10 books of poetry, including the highly acclaimed An American Sunrise, several plays and children's books, and two memoirs, Crazy Brave and Poet Warrior, Harjo’s 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, the Tulsa, Okla., resident has produced seven award-winning music albums. She is a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, Board of Directors chair of the Native Arts & Cultures Foundation, and is the first artist-in-residence for Tulsa's Bob Dylan Center.

In February 2023, Harjo was named the winner of Yale’s 2023 Bollingen Prize for American Poetry, awarded biennially to an American poet for the best book published during the previous two years or for lifetime achievement in poetry. Harjo received the award for her book, Weaving Sundown in a Scarlet Light: Fifty Poems for Fifty Years, and for her lifetime achievement in and contributions to American poetry.

Harjo's scheduled reading is supported by Georgia Humanities, Ocmulgee Mounds Association, Georgia Council for the Arts, the National Humanities Center, MGA School of Arts & Letters, and the MGA Foundation.