2021 Katie Jacobson Writer in Residence
REDCAT and the CalArts MFA in Creative Writing are proud to present Joy Harjo. Serving her third term as the U.S. Poet Laureate, and author of nine books of poetry, several plays and children's books, and two memoirs, Crazy Brave and Poet Warrior: A Call for Love and Justice, Joy Harjo’s approach to writing as inseparable from orality, memory, culture and performance invigorates her creation of an ever-unfolding cross-genre literary form. Her acclaimed writings map a rich cosmology, where time, body, heart and knowing shape her compassionate dedication to a poetics that empowers Native American voices in tribal history, struggle and everyday life. Her national bestseller, An American Sunrise, threads her personal experiences and tribal histories to reflect on the blessings of her homeland and confront the site where the Mvskoke people, including her own ancestors, were forcibly displaced. As she makes clear in her poem, “Break My Heart,”: “Baby, baby, baby/You can’t say what’s been said/Before, though even words/Are creatures of habit,” holding space for recuperation and new beginnings insists on the inimitable power of vulnerability, rooted in resistance, in land and love, wisdom she is celebrated for.
This event is free and open to the public.
Joy Harjo, the 23rd Poet Laureate of the United States, is a member of the Mvskoke Nation and belongs to Oce Vpofv (Hickory Ground). She is only the second poet to be appointed a third term as U.S. Poet Laureate.
Born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, she left home to attend high school at the innovative Institute of American Indian Arts, which was then a Bureau of Indian Affairs school. Harjo is the author of nine books of poetry, including her most recent, the highly acclaimed An American Sunrise (2019), which was a 2020 Oklahoma Book Award Winner. Her first memoir, Crazy Brave, was awarded the PEN USA Literary Award in Creative Non Fiction and the American Book Award, and her second, Poet Warrior: A Call for Love and Justice, is forthcoming from W.W. Norton in Fall 2021
About the Katie Jacobson Writer in Residence Program
The Katie Jacobson Writer in Residence Program was created in memory of our late alum. With this program, we encourage and celebrate the foresight and engagement with the innovative writing arts community that Ms. Jacobson was known for. Each year, the Katie Jacobson Writer in Residence Program brings a prestigious writer to the CalArts campus for a public lecture, a classroom visits, and individual meetings with MFA Creative Writing students, and, in partnership with REDCAT, presents a reading by the Writer in Residence to a wider Los Angeles audience.
The Katie Jacobson Writer in Residence is made possible by a generous donation from the Jacobson Family.
Photo: Paul Abdoo
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