Joy Harjo is now writing a visionary poetry that is among the very best we have.–Village Voice
I first encountered Joy Harjo, member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, at the Gathering of Nations powwow in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in the late 1990s. At an offsite event she read some poems, then sang and played her saxophone with her band, Poetic Justice. I was transfixed. I picked up a book of her poetry, In Mad Love and War (Wesleyan University Press, 1990), which she signed and inscribed, For Chris, For Justice, For Love. I have carried that book with me through every move, every bookshelf culling, every physical and emotional transformation since. At a time when I was just beginning to appreciate poetry, Harjo's work became a touchstone against which pretty much everything else would be measured. The poetry of other writers has come and gone, but Harjo's work has remained lodged deep in my heart.–Christopher LaTray, The Missoulian
