Poet Warrior by Joy Harjo
What poetry, and activism share, is truth telling. No surprise then, many poets are activists, activists poets: James Baldwin, bell hooks (the fact she lower-cased her name to decenter herself for story telling), Maya Angelou, Audre Lorde.
They are, said Joy: Poet Warriors.
And this book, is the most intimate memoirs I have read since Preciado’s <Testo Junkie>.
Joy said, those unbearable stories, once mentally observed, physically felt, emotionally abandoned, spiritually forgiven, can be then used as material to build a house of knowledge, this book is perhaps, a corner room facing west, darkness turning into organs sunset glow.
Her sense of knowing, honed to a blade of difficult truth, gleaning and gathering anger, violence, injustice, but also sparks, reconciliation, healing, and yes, joy.
Her deep connection to native roots, culture, ceremonies, rituals, intergenerational transmission of trauma and love brought me to tears many a pages time…
The kitchen table, e.g. is her house in the rain umbrella in the sun, where dreams drink coffee, and wrap their arms around the children, the world ends at the table and begins at the table while families laugh.
But same kitchen table, is where the monster in the house, her father and then step father, dragged her mother by the hair, where he threw Joy and her sister under.
“Shame, originates in the knot of your sacral root and climbs up the rest of your body, like a hate-smelling smoke” “Lingering for years, even generations”, even though they are not yours to begin with.
But at the center of the storm, it is writing, it is words, it is poetry, giving a little bit of shelter… I did what she used to do as a kid too, when storms hits, you read, you write, you speak to yourself, you recite, you feel the words in your mouth, you taste them and you sing them until the storm passed. Rainbow in words.
Poetry was the refuge from the instability and barrage of human disappointment.
We retreated to poetry, we disappeared in music and we lost ourselves in dancing the electronic frequencies of stereo and the commanding vibration of silence.
Authenticity, the blade of difficult truth, is also her way to cut the thick cord, the parasitic inter-dependence with others.
This poem by Audre Lorde, the ancestory of Joy’s poetic crafting, and also in many ways, mine… brought my soul to a still and bone to tears, for all of us live at the shoreline standing upon the constant edges of decision, the anxieties and fears of aliveness and freedom.
A Litany for Survival
BY AUDRE LORDE
For those of us who live at the shoreline
standing upon the constant edges of decision
crucial and alone
for those of us who cannot indulge
the passing dreams of choice
who love in doorways coming and going
in the hours between dawns
looking inward and outward
at once before and after
seeking a now that can breed
futures
like bread in our children’s mouths
so their dreams will not reflect
the death of ours;
For those of us
who were imprinted with fear
like a faint line in the center of our foreheads
learning to be afraid with our mother’s milk
for by this weapon
this illusion of some safety to be found
the heavy-footed hoped to silence us
For all of us
this instant and this triumph
We were never meant to survive.
And when the sun rises we are afraid
it might not remain
when the sun sets we are afraid
it might not rise in the morning
when our stomachs are full we are afraid
of indigestion
when our stomachs are empty we are afraid
we may never eat again
when we are loved we are afraid
love will vanish
when we are alone we are afraid
love will never return
and when we speak we are afraid
our words will not be heard
nor welcomed
but when we are silent
we are still afraid
So it is better to speak
remembering
we were never meant to survive.
