CalArts 2021 Katie Jacobson Writer in Residence: Joy Harjo

U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo is the 2021 Katie Jacobson Writer in Residence at CalArts. | Photo: Paul Abdoo

The CalArts MFA Creative Writing Program’s 2021 Katie Jacobson Writer in Residence Joy Harjo conducts classroom visits and presents public readings on March 22 and 23 as part of her residency. An internationally renowned playwright, musician, performer, and writer of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, Harjo serves as the current U.S. Poet Laureate.

Harjo’s virtual artist talk at REDCAT, CalArts’ downtown center for contemporary arts, will take place on March 23, at 5 pm PST, and is free and open to the public. 

Celebrated for her wisdom and inventive lyricism, Harjo has written nine books of poetry, including her most recent, An American Sunrise, which was a 2020 Oklahoma Book Award Winner. Additionally, Harjo has authored several plays, children’s books, and two memoirs: Crazy Brave, and Poet Warrior: A Call for Love and Justice.

“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,” noted REDCAT’s program.

Harjo is only the second poet to be appointed a third term as U.S. Poet Laureate. Her awards for poetry include the Ruth Lily Prize for Lifetime Achievement from the Poetry Foundation, the Academy of American Poets Wallace Stevens Award, the New Mexico Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts, a PEN USA Literary Award, Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Fund Writers’ Award, the Poets & Writers Jackson Poetry Prize, a Rasmuson USArtist Fellowship, two NEA fellowships, and a Guggenheim Fellowship.