{"id":111547,"date":"2026-10-21T13:30:02","date_gmt":"2026-10-21T13:30:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/?p=111547"},"modified":"2026-10-21T13:30:02","modified_gmt":"2026-10-21T13:30:02","slug":"joy-harjo-first-native-american-u-s-poet-laureate-to-deliver-poetry-reading-at-uri-on-oct-28","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/2026\/10\/joy-harjo-first-native-american-u-s-poet-laureate-to-deliver-poetry-reading-at-uri-on-oct-28\/","title":{"rendered":"Joy Harjo, first Native American U.S. poet laureate, to deliver poetry reading at URI on Oct. 28"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 Oct. 21, 2026 \u2013 Joy Harjo, a trailblazing poet, artist, musician and member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, who in 2019 became the first Native American to be appointed U.S. poet laureate, will deliver a much-anticipated <a href=\"https:\/\/events.uri.edu\/event\/poetry-reading-by-joy-harjo\">poetry reading<\/a> at the University of Rhode Island on <strong>Wednesday, Oct. 28, from 5-7 p.m.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The event, sponsored by URI\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/english\/\">Department of English and Creative Writing<\/a> and the College of Arts and Sciences, will take place in Edwards Hall, 64 Upper College Road, on the Kingston Campus. Harjo&#8217;s visit to URI coincides with the 250<sup>th<\/sup> anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence and will take place on the eve of National Native American Heritage Month, celebrated every November.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Harjo will read and discuss a selection of her poetry from a career spanning over fifty years, including her most recent book,\u201cCloud Runner,\u201d published this month. Harjo\u2019s revelatory poems celebrate and bear witness to human resilience, and reckon with personal, communal, and national histories in a voice singularly warm and oracular. Her work expands our sense of language\u2019s power to express what might seem inexpressible until transformed into story and song.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This free public event will open with a ceremonial welcome to the traditional lands of the Narragansett Nation and to URI, and will include Harjo signing copies of her published work and a question-and-answer session.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">URI students have encountered Harjo\u2019s work this year in several English and Creative Writing courses, including a seminar last spring in Native American Literature co-taught by associate professor <a href=\"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/english\/meet\/martha-elena-rojas\/\">Martha Elena Rojas<\/a>, and Wanda Hopkins \u201920 MA \u201925, a citizen of the Narragansett Tribal Nation and URI Alum. Rojas began this fall with Harjo\u2019s collection \u201cWeaving Sundown in a Scarlet Light: 50 Poems for 50 Years\u201d to introduce students to the poet\u2019s five-decade arc of work and its impact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Rojas hopes both the general public and students learn directly from the poet about what Harjo has called \u201csoul talk\u201d or the art of poetry\u2014a direct, inventive lyricism that calls us to remember while helping us reimagine who we are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cJoy Harjo\u2019s tone within her poetry can be simultaneously timeless, or ancient and urgent, very much of our present now. Like the poet Walt Whitman, whose poetry I have paired with hers this semester, with the 250th anniversary in mind, her work always insists we uphold the idea of justice and aspire to that of equality lauded in the country\u2019s founding documents,\u201d Rojas said. \u201cHer work provides a different perspective that requires us to pay attention to the \u2018many\u2019 in the United States\u2019 <em>E pluribus unum<\/em>. We are looking forward to Joy sharing that perspective here at URI.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Harjo served as the 23<sup>rd<\/sup> U.S. poet laureate from 2019 through 2022 and is just the second poet in the nation\u2019s history to be appointed to a third term. She has authored several poetry collections, including \u201cAn American Sunrise,\u201d published in 2019, which is included in the National Endowment for the Arts\u2019 2026 Big Read program as part of the United States\u2019 celebration of its founding in 1776.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Harjo also authored three award-winning children\u2019s books. Her recent children\u2019s work, \u201cRemember<em>,<\/em>\u201din 2022 became a national bestseller, an American Indian Library Association Honor Book, won a Boston Globe\u2013Horn Book Honor Award, and was named one of the best books of the year by School Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, NPR, and Kirkus Reviews.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As a musician, Harjo produced seven award-winning albums. Her album of traditional flute, \u201cRed Dreams, A Trail Beyond Tears and Winding Through the Milky Way,\u201d won a Native American Music Award (NAMMY) for Best Female Artist of the Year in 2009. This year she has released \u201cInsomnia and Seven Steps to Grace,\u201d her debut album for the Smithsonian Folkways Collection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>For more information about Joy Harjo\u2019s upcoming poetry reading, visit <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/events.uri.edu\/event\/poetry-reading-by-joy-harjo\"><em>the event\u2019s webpage<\/em><\/a><em> or contact URI Associate Professor Martha Elena Rojas at 401-874-7880 or martharojas@uri.edu.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 Oct. 21, 2026 \u2013 Joy Harjo, a trailblazing poet, artist, musician and member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, who in 2019 became the first Native American to be appointed U.S. poet laureate, will deliver a much-anticipated poetry reading at the University of Rhode Island on Wednesday, Oct. 28, from 5-7 p.m. The [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":111558,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[12,1913,1912],"class_list":["post-111547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives","tag-college-of-arts-and-sciences","tag-public-engagement","tag-special-events"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111547"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111547\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":111557,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111547\/revisions\/111557"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}