In addition to her memoir Crazy Brave, Harjo has produced many books of poetry, two books for young audiences, and five award-winning albums. Harjo’s poetry is framed around the traditions and histories of Indigenous people and uses-as described by the Poetry Foundation, 'feminist and social justice poetic traditions.incorporat Indigenous myths, symbols, and values.' She later taught at the Universities of Colorado, New Mexico, California, Hawai’i, Illinois, and Tennessee. It is the tails of two snakes making a spiral…an eternal transformation.”Īfter graduating from the University of New Mexico, Harjo earned an MFA in creative writing from the Iowa Writer’s Workshop in 1978, after which she returned to teach at the Institute of American Indian Arts. Designated in 1934, this area is considered sacred to members of the Muscogee Nation as well as to other tribal nations. The Muscogee call the region around the 702-acre Ocmulgee National Monument “the place where we first sat down,” meaning the place where their ancestors first became a settled agricultural society.

The historic Muscogee, known as mound builders, later built expansive towns within these same river valleys in the present states of Alabama, Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina.” spanned the entire region in what is now the Southeastern United States.Īs they state on their website, “early ancestors of the Muscogee constructed earthen pyramids along the rivers of this region as part of elaborate ceremonial complexes. The Muscogee people are descendants of a culture that, prior to 1500 A.D. I am singing a song that can only be born after losing a country.”-from Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings (2015) There must be unspeakable need, muscle of belief, and wild, unknowable elements. “For any spark to make a song it must be transformed by pressure.

Crazy brave meaning