TWA Poets: Joy Harjo

Born in 1951

It’s the birthday of poet Joy Harjo, born in Tulsa, Oklahoma (1951) to a Muscogee Creek father and mixed-race mother. When she enrolled at age 19 as a member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, she took her paternal grandmother’s last name of “Harjo.” She had a tough home life, with two abusive stepfathers, and at age 16 she moved to Sante Fe to go to art s…