[ Foreign Language Spoken ] >> Stephanie Hammitt: Hello, everyone. My name is Stephanie. I am from the Fond du Lac Reservation. I am President of Fond du Lac Tribal and Community College. [ Foreign Language Spoken ] >> Ivy Vainio: Hello, everybody. Hello, hello all my relatives. My name is Ivy Vainio. My spirit name is Owanaway [phonetic]. I am a Grand Portage Band of Ojibwe direct descendant, and I work as a cultural arts coordinator at the American Indian Community Housing Organization in Duluth, Minnesota. >> Stephanie Hammitt: We welcome you to tonight's presentation by national poet laureate Joy Harjo. We're so excited to cohost this event along with Aiko and hope you enjoy your evening. Others involved in supporting tonight's festivities include Oldenburg Arts and Cultural Community, Minnesota Center for the Book, the Library of Congress, the Arrowhead Regional Arts Council, and the Northland Foundation. Joy Harjo is a writer and performer from the Muscogee Creek Nation. She is serving her third term as the 23rd Poet Laureate of the United States and is the author of nine books of poetry, including "An American Sunrise", several plays, children's books, and two memoirs. Throughout her career, she has received many honors, including the Ruth Lilly Prize for Lifetime Achievement from the Poetry Foundation, the academic -- or excuse me, the Academy of American Poets Wallace Stevens Award, two NEA Fellowships, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. >> Ivy Vainio: Bringing joy is the outcome of the Bringing Joy Poetry Project started by the Oldenburg Arts and Cultural Community and was designed to engage local participants in a transformative experience with poetry aimed at helping them reimagine who they are. This project was founded on the understanding of Harjo's belief that poems are carriers of dreams, knowledge, and wisdom that connect us to the Earth and to the spirit world -- spiritual world. Tonight's event will be recorded, and we will email a link to the recording to all of the registered -- to all who registered for the event. Please note that closed captioning has been enabled. And you can turn it on by clicking closed caption in the meeting controls. [Foreign language spoken] for joining us for this special event and especially to Joy Harjo for sharing your wonderful words. [ Foreign Language Spoken ] >> Lyz Jaakola: It's my honor to be able to sing an opening song for tonight. And this song comes to me through a woman who is my sponsor, my mentor Negombo Miingan [phonetic]. She goes by Sharon Day, and this song is an honor song. And it is sung in honor of Joy and the beautiful work that she does as Poet Laureate for the United States. In our culture, when we sing an honor song, we ask people to stand, so if you're feeling so inclined, you, of course, can do that. But we're on Zoom, so. So, [foreign language spoken] for coming, [foreign language spoken] for listening to me. [ Music ] [ Music and Singing ] >> Elaine Hopkins: I'm Alayne Hopkins, Director of Programs and Services for the friends of the St. Paul Public Library, which is the Library of Congress' designated Minnesota Center for the Book. Thank you to the presenters of tonight's event, particularly the Fond du Lac Tribal and Community College and Aiko, as well as the Oldenburg Arts and Cultural Community for bringing us into collaboration for this event. On behalf of the Minnesota Center for the Book, we honor the indigenous lands on which our organizations rest. We acknowledge we are located on ceded territory still considered traditional lands by the Ojibwe people of the northern region. We recognize and respect the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, as they identify themselves through tribal sovereignty, treaty rights, cultural resilience, and relationships. I also want to acknowledge the Dakota people, indigenous keepers of the land from which I broadcast tonight. We offer our gratitude to the elders of the past, to those living today, and to those who will come in the future, for their stewardship of this land and for their rich cultural legacy. We take time -- excuse me, we take this time to consider the acts of violence, displacement, and unjust treatment for them that have occurred over many generations. We respectfully acknowledge that indigenous history is the original history of this land, and that we are part of their story. We contribute to this story by recognizing and celebrating the first peoples of the state. We're incredibly grateful at the Minnesota Center for the Book to have played a very small part in the process of bringing Joy Harjo to Minnesota, at least virtually, through partnership with the Library of Congress. It's been an honor to witness the community and relationship building that's been at the heart of this process. And it's truly a model for how state centers can work with local organizations to help bring access to amazing writers such as our US Poet Laureate. The Minnesota Center for the Book conducts several ongoing programs including the Minnesota Book Awards, the touring program, Moving Words: Writers Across Minnesota, and the One Book, One Minnesota program, which brings Minnesotans together through stories. We offer online resources like the Minnesota Writers Directory and Minnesota Writers on the Map in honor of the writers who have shaped the literary legacy of our state. Launching next year will be programming with the Minnesota Humanities Center and Minnesota's third Poet Laureate Dr. Gwen Nell Westerman, a distinguished scholar and poet and enrolled member of the Sisseton Wahpeton Dakota Oyate. We look forward to helping create programming that spreads the joy and wonder of poetry throughout the state, which is, of course, what we are all doing and taking part in tonight. So, thank you all so much for being here in a shared love of poetry and in honor of our US Poet Laureate Joy Harjo. >> Linda LeGarde Grover: [Foreign language spoken], everyone. [Foreign language spoken] and I am from Nett Lake Minnesota living here in Duluth. [Foreign language spoken], it's my great pleasure tonight to introduce Joy Harjo to you. Joy is a poet, writer of essays, she's a playwright, musician. She is multi-creative across many disciplines, and really important to all of us in Indian Country. She is a great encourager and helper to other native people who are involved in these endeavors. And we are -- we are really thankful that she is such a wonderful citizen of our great tribal nations. Joy was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and I believe that's where she is today. She attended the Institute of American Indian Arts, and she began to write poetry when she was a student, a college student at the University of New Mexico. She was involved in the student organization, the Kiba club. She then earned an MFA from the Iowa Writers Workshop, and she has taught English, Creative Writing, American Indian Studies at universities across the United States. She is author of nine books of poetry, An American Sunrise her most recent, which is -- I think it's my favorite so far, won an Oklahoma Book Award. "Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings" was shortlisted for the Griffin Prize and named a notable Book of the Year by the American Library Association. And "Mad Love and War", received an American Book Award and the Delmore Schwartz Memorial Award. She's won many awards for her books of poetry, the Ruth Lilly Prize for lifetime achievement, the Wallace Stephens Award and, of course, the Guggenheim Fellowship. Joy's first memoir, "Crazy Brave", was awarded the Pan-USA Literary Award for creative nonfiction and the American Book Award. Her second memoir, "Poet Warrior: A Memoir", was released just this last month. She is author of two award winning children's books, "The Good Luck Cat", and "For a Girl Becoming". She has written several screenplays and collections of prose and three plays. Joy is Executive Director of -- I'm sorry, Executive Editor of the anthology "When the Light of the World was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through". That's a Norton Anthology of Native nations poetry, and Editor of "Living Nations, Living Words," an anthology of First Peoples poetry that features the work of 47 Native nations poets. Now this is through an interactive story map and a newly developed Library of Congress audio collection, multi-genres here. Joy works with her saxophone and flute solo and with her band, the Aerodynamics Band, and previously with Joy Harjo and Poetic Justice. They've toured in many countries around the world. She has produced seven award winning albums and has been awarded an Emmy for Best Female Artist of the Year. She serves as Chancellor of the Academy of American poets, holds a Tulsa Artist Fellowship, directs for Girls Becoming, an arts mentoring program for young Muskogee women, and is a founding member and chair of the Native Arts and Culture Foundation. She has been inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the American Philosophical Society, the National Native American Hall of Fame, and the National Women's Hall of Fame. And here is a story about Joy that involves me. Not long after the stunningly, beautiful, and lovingly written For a Girl Becoming was released, Joy was the featured poet here in Duluth in [inaudible] for the Spirit Lake Poetry Series. And that is where I first met her. We shared a breakfast and some time together. I got to read with her, and we drove around Duluth looking at the lake, the rocky hills, and the expanse of the horizon. I really enjoyed talking and hanging out with Joy. And it's a memory that I hold dear. And one reason for this, and only one of the reasons, is that I thought, and I still think, she was, not only the coolest poet, but the coolest person I had ever met. Please join me in welcoming Joy Harjo. >> Joy Harjo: [Foreign language spoken], thank you. Thank you for the incredible welcoming, not just for me, but for everyone here, everyone who is attending this event, and all of -- everybody -- everyone who is gathered here right now. And it really does open the door. So, I appreciate that. I'm here, I guess, Joy Harjo [foreign language spoken]. I'm a member of the Muscogee Creek Nation on [inaudible] ceremonial grounds. And I'm speaking to you from the Muscogee Creek Nation reservation here in Tulsa, Oklahoma. And I've been up to your part of the world many times, and well, not many, but some. And I've met many of the poets and people from that way, in a beautiful way. And I was thinking about what I was going to read tonight. And it does -- you can finally feel the fall coming. There's a full moon getting full and, and I love the -- so we were talking beforehand about the moon on the water, and I could smell it, and I could hear the quiet, the water, and feel it. So, I think tonight I will read poetry, but I'm going to read some from the memoir, Poet Warrior, which weaves poetry. You know, it weaves poetry, but because of the changing of the seasons, I just thought it would be good to read some -- to read a little bit of stories too. But I'm going to start with this one. It's called "For Calling the Spirit Back from Wandering the Earth in Its Human Feet". And I guess [inaudible] too, it's something we do in the fall and as we head towards winter, especially in climates where we have cold weather or colder weather is we do start calling -- you know, we've been out. We've been -- there's been harvest and all that, and we start calling ourselves back in to be in another kind of way. But we also do that in ages. In a way, that's what's been going on in the pandemic because we had to call ourselves back for a while to kind of -- to remember who we are, what's going on, and to recognize the crisis that we're in together and we've been in together at so many levels. And to find ways to -- that we can gather together and figure out -- figure it out in ways that include the good of everyone. For Calling the Spirit Back from Wandering the Earth in Its Human Feet, put down that bag of potato chips, that white bread that bottle of pop. Turn off that cell phone, computer, and remote control. Open the door and then close it behind you. Take a breath offered by friendly winds. They travel the Earth gathering essences of plants to clean. Give it back with gratitude. If you seeing, it will give your spirit lift to fly to the stars, ears, and back. Acknowledge the earth that is -- who has cared for you since you were a dream planting itself precisely within your parents desire. Let your moccasin feet take you to the encampment of the guardians who have known you before time, who will be there after time. They sit before the fire that has been there without time. Let the earth stabilize your post-colonial insecure jitters. Be respectful of the small insects, birds, and animal people who accompany you. Ask their forgiveness for the harm we humans have brought down upon them. Don't worry, the heart knows the way, though there may be high rises, interstates, checkpoints, armed soldiers, massacres, wars, and those who will despise you because they despise themselves. The journey might take you a few hours a day, a year, a few years, 100, 1,000, or even more. Watch your mind. Without training, it might run away and leave your heart for the immense human feast set by thieves of time. Do not hold regrets. When you find your way to the circle, to the fire kept burning by the keepers of your soul, you will be welcomed. You must clean yourself with cedar sage or other healing plant. Cut the ties you have to failure and shame. Let go the pain you are holding in your mind, your shoulders, your heart, all the way to your feet. Let go the pain of your ancestors to make way for those who are heading in our direction. Ask for forgiveness. Call upon the help of those who love you. Call your spirit back. It may be caught in corners and creases of shame, judgment, and human abuse. You must call in a way that your spirit will want to return. Speak to it as you would a beloved child. Welcome your spirit back from its wandering. It may return in pieces and tatters, gather them together. They will be happy to be found after being lost for so long. Your spirit will need to sleep a while after it is bathed and given clean clothes. Now you can have a party. Invite everyone you know who loves and supports you. Keep room for those who have no place else to go. Make a giveaway and remember, keep the speeches short. Then you must do this. Help the next person find their way through the dark. Okay. I was going to read-- Maybe because I was just out in LA. I had to go help record something. And I wound up living there for a little while, I think because I said I will never live in LA. And never is a -- never is one of those dangerous magic words. Anytime you say never, you're going to find yourself doing that. It also goes along with the law of judgment. When you judge somebody else pointedly, there you are doing the same thing, and I will find it here. I guess I didn't write down the page number. But yeah, let's see. I'll have to look it up here. I know, I'm almost there. Here it is. So, anyway, I was -- we were taping about a few blocks, in the first place, I lived there, which was an apartment right off -- a studio apartment, a tiny little place right off Wilcox in Hollywood Boulevard. I had never lived in a place like that. I didn't live in that little place long. And then move to Laurel Canyon and then stayed with my cousin and then etcetera, etcetera. "The Path to the Milky Way Leads to Los Angeles", there are strangers above me, below me, and all around me, and we are all strange in this place of recent invention. The city name for angels appears naked and stripped of anything resembling the shaking of turtle shells, the songs of human voices on a summer night outside Okmulgee. Yet, it's perpetually summer here and beautiful. The shimmer of Gods is easier to perceive at sunrise or dusk. When those who remember us here in the illusion of the marketplace turn toward the changing of the sun and say our names, we matter to somebody. We must matter to this strange god who imagines us as we revolve together in the dark sky on the path to the Milky Way. We can't easily see that starry road from the perspective of the crossing the boulevards. Can't hear it in the wine of civilization or taste the minerals of plants and hamburgers. But we can buy a map of the stars' homes, dial a tone for dangerous love, choose from several brands of water, or hits of oxygen for gentle rejuvenation. Everyone knows you can't buy love, but you can still sell your soul for less than a song to a stranger who will sell it to someone else for a profit until you're owned by a company of strangers in the city of strange and getting stranger. I'd rather understand how to sing from a crow, who was never good at singing or much of anything but finding gold in the trash of humans. So, what are we doing here? I asked the crow parading on the ledge of falling that hangs over this precarious city. Crow just laughs and says, wait, wait, see? And I am waiting and not seeing anything, not just yet. Like Crow, I collect the shine of anything beautiful I can find. So, during the pandemic, I've been working. I got a new album out. I'll play a song on that in a little while. I got a new album out and -- called, "I Pray for My Enemies", an album of music and got out -- worked on the anthology, the poet laureate project and this memoir. My last memoir, Crazy Brave, was 14 years late to the publisher. That's another story. And this one I got in ahead of time, and I'm just going to talk and read some selections from here. It opens -- it kind of opens with -- it opens -- what opened it for me was the memory of going with my Aunt Lois all over the Creek Nation and visiting with relatives, the elders. And she was a little older than me, and I used to drive her -- I would drive her around. That was one of my favorite things to do is to hear those stories. And we would go visit -- one guy -- one cousin of hers we liked to visit was George Coser [phonetic], and he had a lot of stories. And he been in the rodeo. He knew rope tricks, and he was quite a talker, and he knew all -- he knew a lot of good stories. And the book ends with my cousin George Coser Jr. and I visiting, talking the same -- you know, it's -- like it doesn't end. We're still -- you know, it's part of a spiral. I was going to say it's a circle, but it's not a closer. It just -- it's more like a spiral. I returned to the stories that I was told. And thank you for the interpreter, the sign interpreter. You're doing a great job. What is your name, Taylan [assumed spelling]? And yeah, so I know it can be hard to keep -- you're doing great. Thank you. I returned to the stories that I was told, the stories I can't seem to remember or keep straight to the telling. Like the ones I heard when I used to drive my Aunt Lois around the Creek Nation to visit our relatives, all her age and older, which is near the age I am now. This was when I was in my twenties and thirties and when she lived in her apartment on West Eighth Avenue -- West Eighth Street in Okmulgee, before she was disabled with a stroke and taken to a nursing home to live out the last few years of her life. Every day I miss her cultural knowledge of our people, her insight and humor. I missed the historical documents and family artifacts that crowded her small apartment that told of our family's part in the forest march from the South to Indian Territory, to what became known as Oklahoma. These stacks contained written accounts of family stories of bravery and justice but left out the story she told me a favorite black dogs, horse magic, bending time, how to avoid the places where known conjurers lived, and of the Spanish man accompanying the people on the trail, who wore a diamond pin that glittered as he sat tall on his horse. One of her paintings accompanies me through my life since her passing. It is a painting of a talisman pulling a piece of pottery out of fire. She used to make many trips to the southwest and was friends with many of the Pueblo people, including Maria Martinez, the San Ildefonso Potter. I am now friends with her grandchildren. When I was with her, I knew I belonged. And in that -- and in this circle of belonging, I had a place in the stories. Everyone needs this kind of place, this feeling of kinship. Without it, we are lost children wandering the Earth our whole lives without a sense of belonging. Even a country can be like a lost child because it may have no roots in the Earth on which it has established itself. I miss being in my aunt's tall, physical presence, her graceful and private bearing. Her spiritual presence remains urging me forward to understanding and love, to knowledge given by her example. She was an artist, a painter, a lover of the arts, of native arts and cultures. She worked at the Creek Council House and taught art classes in Okmulgee. I am writing in an apartment in downtown Tulsa. I was born before cell phones and computers, before the proliferation of devices installed with memory, which prompt the user to forget. I do not want to forget, though sometimes memory appears to be an enemy bringing only pain. There are so many memories. One returned my mother to me. That memory opened up in a dream. There she was sitting on the roof of a house in red shorts not long after she gave birth to me. I wish that I had written down everything my aunt and all the elders told me. So, I could have their wisdom, their struggles, their hard won stories right here for referral to provoke, even cultivate new stories. Growing memories and the ability to access memory is a skill that allows access to eternity. It is within all of us. I do not have the best memory. I often tell the circle of old ones who, when I speak with them, and I do speak with those whom I love, who have moved on from this earthly realm, especially when writing poetry or any kind of story or music. They remind me here's your opportunity to practice memory. I am not the best speaker or listener, I tell them. Take your opportunity with grace, they tell me. You are here to learn. Learn how to listen, how to walk into each challenging story without fear, fearless. I have asked my aunt, uncles, cousins, and others, all those with whom I sat, listened, and shared throughout this life to be with me as I write. It is a very different world within which you make stories, share, and participate, they tell me. Too many words, I heard one grandfather remark. What is it with you and all these English words? These times were predicted, a time in which the birds would be confused about which direction to fly, to migrate. The time in which the sun would darken with pollution, a time in which there would be confusion and famine. In these kinds of times, we are in great danger of forgetting our original teachings, the nature of the kind of world we share, and what it requires of us. In this world of forgetfulness, they told me, you will forget how to nourish the connection between humans, plants, animals, and the elements, the connection needed to make food for your mind, heart, body and spirit. You were born of a generation that promised to help remember. Each generation makes a person. You came in together to make change. That's one section. And I'm going to read this other section here. As I knew the last doorway of this present life, I am trying to understand the restless path on which I have traveled. My failures have been my most exacting teachers. They are all linked by one central characteristic. That -- and that is the failure to properly regard the voice of inner truth. That voice speaks softly. It is not judgmental, full of pride, or otherwise loud. It does not deride, shame, or otherwise attempt to derail you. When I fail to trust what my deepest knowing tells me, I suffer. The voice of inner truth or the knowing has access to the wisdom of eternal knowledge. The perspective of that voice is timeless. I would never have become a poet if I hadn't listened to that small inner voice that told me that poetry was the path, even when I had different plans. All of the other voices of educators, friends, voices of love and concern told me that poetry was an impossible vocation. It is an impossible vocation. They reminded me that -- they reminded me I had two small children to raise alone, that I could change my major to education, then I could teach poetry if I wanted to be invested in poetry. Instead, I listened to that humble voice that did not need to puff itself up or have approval to be chosen. I have made choices that have made no sense to anyone else. But they were the right choices for me. I didn't always understand them either. Even the choice to be a poet is still often a mystery, just as the need to create and make music. When I listen, I am always led in the right direction. That doesn't mean the result of path is easy. It might be the more difficult path. You may have to clear boulders, walk through fire after fire, or try to find footing in precarious flooding. You will play the wrong notes and write words that mean nothing to anyone else but you. And you may appear to have followed the wrong path, even though it was the right path as you fail over and over again. So, that's part of that. I'm just reading sections out of here just to be helpful. This part here this is -- somebody asked me earlier in, in the earlier session about writing, what was difficult. So, I might read some of that here. Yes, I will. Let's see. This whole book, it's -- I go over some of the territory of Crazy Brave but from a different kind of place, and then go farther than that into other places. But I'm going to read this difficult part because while writing this, I don't always know what's going to happen when I write, and I just follow and listen and then help construct something. So, in this book, there is a -- it's kind of became a poetic voice called Girl Warrior. She's a character representative [inaudible] a younger me. And she's going through difficulty, and I didn't have a coming of age ceremony when I was a young woman. I needed -- we all need -- we all need those doorways. And so, when I came to this part in the book that was difficult and painful to write, some part of me said way back into time, to make -- to bring people together and make that ceremony for this young woman who was, yes, represents me, but represents, in a way, all of our young woman coming of age who need a community, the circle of -- especially the mothers, grandmothers around them, but the whole family, a circle of family around them. So, yeah, it was interesting when this happened, and I thought, I didn't know I could do this in a book. So, but I think by nature, poetry, song, we heard a song. We heard prayer and welcoming. By nature, it's kind of -- it's like ritual. We need -- it's like patterning, and we need that. When we come of age, we need that doorway. I think of a poem in a way as being in its -- by its nature, you know, ritualistic or ceremony. There's the title that calls you in, and then each line, in a way, brings a gift or brings something that is needed for that particular coming together of a poem. So, this Girl Warrior, that's her name, and then she becomes -- after the ceremony, they give her the name. You'll hear. I think I have -- remind me if I don't say it here. I'm running a little on jetlag. Okay. Girl Warrior lied and said she was going out with her friend to hang out at her house. She wasn't a friend, rather a girl she barely knew and had a bad feeling when she asked her to double date. Some of these kind of go into poems, and then it goes into narrative. And had a bad feeling when she -- Girl started getting -- Girl Warrior lied and said she was going out with her friend to hang out at her house. She wasn't a friend, rather a girl she barely knew and had a bad feeling when she asked her to double date. Girl Warrior was not allowed to do, nor was she usually allowed to go anywhere with friends or without. But she begged her mother and her stepfather was working late i.e., he was seeing a woman on the other side of town. Girl Warrior got in the car and knew her fate was in the hands of reckless strangers. She had a dime taped under her shoe for a phone -- inside her shoe for a phone call. But who would she call it if there was trouble? No one. They drove to another town. Her date was 10 years older. He bought them beer. What the hell? It was the first time she had anything resembling a date. She wanted to be normal. Every drink made her feel more and more normal. Girl Warrior's new girlfriend left with her boyfriend without telling her. She saw the red of their tail lights disappear into darkness. It grew larger and larger, until Girl Warrior had no way to get home. She just wanted to be normal, drink Cokes, flip her hair back, and laugh with someone who might offer his hand, his jacket, or other small kindness between new friends. There was more beer, but she wanted to ride before her stepfather made it back to the house. She had to pay the darkness either way. This is how I came of age by a tightrope slung between my desires and the desires of others. I was hungry for ritual. Ritual creates belonging. We are all in a ritual marked by sunrise, daily -- sunrise, daylight, sunset, night, and moon phases. We also move within the ritual of the changing of seasons, either fall, winter, spring, and summer, or dry and rainy seasons. Our cultural practices are arranged according to these Earth rituals. We all need rituals of becoming in which we are given instructions that define our relationship with becoming, with our relatives, those sharing this whole world around us. This is how it was meant to be for those coming up at all stages of our becoming in this life. In these times, however, of degradation of our physical, mental, and spiritual sources of nourishment, we are losing ourselves and our children. Until we understand and act as if we are the Earth, then each of us will experience the pain of separation from sacred knowledge from ourselves. I walked back in time to help make a coming of age ceremony for Girl Warrior. I construct a doorway, where sunrise is aligned above a dark blue horizon. Ger grandmothers and great grandmothers gather around and speak. Her -- the ancestors appear here to help because she is one of us. She is us. She is worthy of love, of tenderness, of all that she needs to create a future. The world lives within the cradle of her hips. She is every girl, this girl. They tell her that every seven years marks of renewal shift and a retest. Seven is considered a sacred number, within it are the four directions, above, below, and within. It makes a complete cycle. They tell her that the second cycle of seven in our lives marks a crisis in becoming. We mature into adulthood. A boy becomes a man. A girl becomes a woman. Becoming includes countless range of gender expression. Be exactly who you are, they tell her, in your becoming. They remind her that she is holding tremendous power, and power has two sides. It can harm or heal. To hold such power can be difficult. That's why we need guidance and ritual and ceremony, especially at this age, but at any age. For power without grounding and sharing can destroy. In our Muscogee tribal traditions, adolescence is a time of teaching and celebration, the old ones say. As you enter this doorway of womanhood, they tell her you must keep the fire going of [foreign language spoken], no, sorry, [foreign language spoken] or spiritual belief. You must seek and acquire a spiritual understanding of life. Your relationship with your creator is central. Tend it with quiet and communion. Turn your eyes and ears inward and listen, begin every morning tending this fire. And [foreign language spoken] is community. Your body is a community of organs, all living with consciousness. Their work -- they work together to house you in this story. Community is those with whom you live, from home to school to your tribal nation, city, or state. You must remember to place community and interest -- community interest in benefits above individual personal -- and personal gain. Always be kind and humble. [Foreign language spoken] is humility. None of us is above the other. [Foreign language spoken] means respect. Respect this gift of life, and in doing, so we respect ourselves and others. [Foreign language spoken] is integrity, be honest. Tell the truth, keep an ethical stance. [Foreign language spoken] translates as trust. Take responsibility for every act, thought, or dream. [Foreign language spoken] is the continual gaining of wisdom, listen, study hard, beloved granddaughter. [Foreign language spoken] is leadership. We are all put here to be leaders within ourselves, our families, and our communities. Be a leader. Do not forget that we are here and will always be here for you. You can call on us anytime. We love you. We wrap Girl Warrior in a new blanket and walk her out to the doorway of her beginning, which is also a new beginning for us, her family. A beautiful sunrise brightens the sky. She is given her new name. She is given gifts. One gives her plants that will help her to help herself and others, and then so on and so on. And say, you are becoming in a time in which you will see the world turn upside down before is renewed, they tell her. So, through that she becomes Poet Warrior. Children coming of age need to be taught by the elders who pass on what has strengthened and inspired them in life. When this time of becoming as honored by their families, their community, the young ones emerge into adulthood with the -- with a lit charge to develop spiritually, mentally, and physically and -- or on an intimate part of carrying the community into their future. Okay. Let me see. I have another story here. Here's a little piece. This is like a little poem inside the [inaudible]. Poet Warrior reached for a gun. She was given a paintbrush, a saxophone, a pen. These will be your instruments of power, the old ones said, [inaudible] as a tool of takeover by governments, even as a dance to the imagination of revolutionary -- imaginations of revolutionaries as the perfect tool for social change. Do not be fooled, they told her. Violence might be louder, tougher, and it is often good looking. The power of insight and compassion is fiercely humble and helpful. Be ready for what your age demands. You will be tested. There will be jealousy, envy, but the most difficult enemies will be from your closest circle, even your family. You must act in a manner that will cause no harm to anyone seven generations back or forward. So, when I write, it's -- I feel like it's like I'm listening. I feel like I'm being taught as I write. And I think what I'll do here is shift a little bit and play one of my new songs from the album, I Pray for My Enemies. And let's see, you guys, I think you'll be able to hear it. This one I wrote as the pandemic started. I have a grandfather that I was very close to. He pass before I came, and so this is kind of in honor of him, this song. But when that pandemic started, I remember looking outside, and it was so quiet, and we needed that for reflection. It's called "How Love Blows Through the Trees". [ Music ] [ Music and Singing ] [ Music ] [ Music and Singing ] [ Music ] Okay. I think I will -- thank you. I'll -- I'm going to end with this poem. It's a new one, and it's called "Without". And I want to thank you for inviting me here to be up in your community, even if it's virtual. We're all still here, and I can feel that moon on the lake. Without, the road will keep trudging through time without us, when we lift from the story contest to fly home. We will be as falling stars to those watching from the edge of grief and heartbreak. Maybe then we will see the design of the two-minded creature and know why half the world fights righteously for greedy masters and the other half is nailing it all back together through the smoke of cooking fires, lovers, trysts, and endless human industry. Maybe then, beloved rascal, we will find each other again and the timeless weave of breathing. We will sit under the trees in the shadow of Earth's sorrows, watch hyenas drink rain, and laugh. What's the word for hyenas in sign language? Yeah. Okay, Thank you, [inaudible]. Okay. >> Stephanie Hammitt: Thank you so much. We would like to present you with a gift from the college, as is our tradition here at Fond du Lac. We have this beautiful woven blanket. You can see a little bit of it here. It's -- it was designed by local Ojibwe artists and Fond du Lac Band Member Sarah Egerton House [assumed spelling]. The Renewal Heart Buried Blanket is a representation of the woodlands floral tradition. The design honors the land through the wild plum flower, the water through the wild rice, excuse me, design and healing through the dogwood flower, which is used to create traditional tobacco, [foreign language spoken]. It is inspired by the Artist Regalia. The scallop shape symbolizes that humans are part of nature, part of the constant renewal and revitalization of the land, water, sky, and spirit, which requires us to understand and practice our ancestral ways. I was taught the gifting of a blanket to someone represents respect, admiration, and honor for the individual, and hope that you will accept it with these thoughts in mind. We will mail the blanket to you soon, and we only wish we could present it to you in person. But thank you so much. >> Joy Harjo: [Inaudible] thank you. I'm so honored to be here with you and your community. I've always had a good time with you guys. Yeah. Thank you. >> Ivy Vainio: Okay, [foreign language spoken], Joy, such a special evening with you. And our -- I think there was like almost 400 people on this session. So, that was pretty cool. The American Indian Community Housing Organization, which houses the [inaudible] Art Gallery is proud to work with, advocate, and support almost eighty indigenous and diverse artists, locally, regionally, and national artists. We commissioned a local Pyramid Lake Paiute artist by the name of Chenoa Williams [assumed spelling], to create a beaded medallion for you. And she was -- she was inspired by you and came up with the design. So, I'm so excited. I've been just -- I just can't wait to show you, so totally inspired by you. Okay, let me see if I can get this. >> Joy Harjo: Wow. >> Ivy Vainio: And it's got like [inaudible]-- >> Joy Harjo: That's beautiful. >> Ivy Vainio: Right there. And so, I'm just going to read her artist statement on this medallion. The medallion is inspired by a life well lived and not always within the parameters of what is expected. It is not perfect. It has visible scars and stories that accompany them. When I was asked to make this beaded medallion, I had no idea what I would create. I usually make things on feelings and intuition. The design was an honest version of a perceived lie of perfection. The original design is less, and less is more, more or less. This was also a version of broken things that are more beautiful when the cracks are visible. I listened to Joy Harjo on YouTube. I wanted to get a feel of an essence. My feel was that imperfect lived risks taken were what I would base my design on. It's honest, in your face. You cannot deny its power. In the end, the idea of cracks are transformed into a power source like lightning. And so, that is from Chenoa Williams. She is an incredible artist, and, yeah, so I want to just say [foreign language spoken] to Chenoa Williams, also to Sarah Egerton House for sharing their designs with us to give to you or gift to you. And [foreign language spoken] to you, Joy, for your time. Your words, your inspiration, your music, that was so lovely, and being a force of indigenous resilience, creativity, and light. So, [foreign language spoken] from all of us at Aiko, the Duluth community here in Minnesota, and Fond du Lac Tribal Community College. >> Joy Harjo: [Foreign language spoken], thank you so much. The stories behind all of that, that makes perfect sense. And that design, I've never seen a design quite like that. It's really -- and that's true. That's true for all of us, you know, about those cracks. I think that, for me, that's what turned me around because I was suicidal and cutting myself and all of that when I was a young woman. And at one point, I finally learned that it's those cracks, those are what -- they're actually more interesting, ultimately. That it was stuff that I could use, the stuff of that to build something, rather than use it as a weapon to destroy me. It was hard to learn and we still -- you know, I -- we all -- you know, you learn it, but you go through different aspects of it. But it's, ultimately, we learn these things to help others. >> Ivy Vainio: Yeah. All right, [foreign language spoken]. >> Stephanie Hammitt: Okay, well, thank you all so much in the audience for joining us this evening. And special thanks to Fund du Lac faculty member Darcy Schumer [assumed spelling], who helped really pull us off thing together. She did just a wonderful job, so proud to have her at the college. And this concludes our evening and stay safe everyone and thank you so much, [foreign language spoken]. >> Joy Harjo: Yeah. >> Stephani Hammitt: Take care. [ Music ]