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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC, and lucky us, former US Poet Laureate, Joy Harjo is back with us now, a writer of the Muscogee Nation. Harjo is the first native person to have served as US Poet Laureate. She's authored books of poetry, she's authored plays, children's books, and two memoirs. Oh, by the way, as some of you know, she's also a musician. She's here today because one of her poems published 40 years ago has taken on new life as a children's book. The poem and the new children's book are called Remember, accompanying illustrations by Caldecott medalist and member of the Tlingit nation, Michaela Goade.

The book, Remember, invites young readers to reflect on the world around them and how we're all connected. The author's note reads, "Remember came into the world to remind me who I am as a human being, living on this generous earth. We all need to be reminded to remember." Joy Harjo, it's always an honor. Welcome back to WNYC. So glad you could join us today.

Joy Harjo: Yes. Where are you?

[laughter]

Joy Harjo: I can hear you.

Brian Lehrer: I am broadcasting from the ether. So glad [unintelligible 00:01:27]. I understand that you've agreed to start by reading the poem Remember.

Joy Harjo: Yes.

Brian Lehrer: Short enough for that in this segment, so I'm going to give you the floor. We're all ears.

Joy Harjo: Okay. Just start in, huh?

Brian Lehrer: Yes, or if you want to set it up, that's up to you.

Joy Harjo: This is the poem, Remember, now a children's book with illustrations by Michaela Goade from Random House.

Remember the sky you were born under, know each of the star’s stories.

Remember the moon, know who she is.

Remember the sun’s birth at dawn, that is the strongest point of time.

Remember sundown and the giving away to night.

Remember your birth, how your mother struggled to give you form and breath.

You are evidence of her life, and her mother’s, and hers.

Remember your father. He is your life, also.

Remember the earth whose skin you are:

red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth

brown earth, we are earth.

Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their tribes, their families, their histories, too.

Talk to them, listen to them. They are alive poems.

Remember the wind.

Remember her voice. She knows the origin of this universe.

Remember you are all people and all people are you.

Remember all is in motion, is growing, is you.

Remember you are this universe and this universe is you.

Remember.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you so much. That was so beautiful. Can you talk about why remember? To my ear, you're trying to place an individual in the context of everything, that we're not individuals disconnected from other things. We're not islands unto ourselves. We're connected in all the ways that you just recited. Is that what you're getting at? If so, why do you connect it to memory, remember as the organizing principle?

Joy Harjo: That's a good question. I wrote this poem when I was still an undergraduate writing student, I think, and the way I think about it now, after all of these years, it's probably been 50 years since I wrote this poem, is that I needed to remember. [chuckles] It was an admonishment to me as the poet, as the beginning poet. I had no idea what would unfold as I continued my journey, but it was something that I needed to know or to remember. The way I think about memory, it's a living story field with many dimensions and it moves.

It's constantly moving into the past, present, and future so that in a way to say remember is like, "Here you are, you're a living dynamic being, and in this story field. You're not the only one. Everyone has a place. Everyone has a story." When I say everyone, I also mean the animals and the plants and winds and elements. There is no higher hierarchy in the sense that one is not more than the next, but every story, so to speak, in the story field, is needed and absolutely necessary. That's why they're here.

Brian Lehrer: It's political in a way too, right? It's reminding individuals to be humble about themselves and remember the broader context of the world. Would you say it's political? Would you use that word on one level?

Joy Harjo: Yes. I think I grew up at a time with some incredible mentors who taught me that, like Audre, the poet, Audre Lorde, Adrienne Rich, I was around when even the idea of multicultural literature was a new thing in the schools, is that, yes, it is definitely in the sense that it's a different kind of world when you understand and you go about your life knowing that we're all related and there is no hierarchy and that we are all earth, we are all one being, then a story. Then if your guiding story says that you are special as a particular group of human beings and only you have the right to ownership, that you own everything on earth and it all belongs to you, yes, it's very political. [laughs]

Brian Lehrer: Maybe it'll be banned in Florida. I don't know. Have they tried to do that yet?

Joy Harjo: I think they're working on it. [chuckles] Who knows? Who knows what craziness and insanity will happen?

Brian Lehrer: It's a poem that has apparently, I understand, been recited in part or in full at weddings and funerals and cultural ceremonies of various kinds. Did you imagine that this poem would live on in so many different ways when it came to you?

Joy Harjo: No, I didn't. Most writers, poets, even musicians, you perform eventually, but most of your work takes place in the imagination and sitting in a room listening. That's what I think of it, as a call-and-response process with listening. No, I had no idea. This poem is on the Lucy spacecraft now as it travels towards Jupiter, and it's--

Brian Lehrer: Really?

Joy Harjo: Yes.

Brian Lehrer: I didn't know that.

Joy Harjo: Yes, it's going to have a life of its own. Who knows? It's hooked into something that I could never have imagined.

Brian Lehrer: What do you mean it's on the Lucy spacecraft? Is there a piece of paper with the poem on the spacecraft?

Joy Harjo: No, and I'm not the only one. There are several. I think there's even a quote from Paul McCartney from a song. There's I think part of a poem from different people. I think Billy Collins has a poem on. They've attached, actually, pieces of literature to the spacecraft, so it's not just in paper.

Brian Lehrer: Oh, wow.

Joy Harjo: It's actually on the spacecraft.

Brian Lehrer: As it passes by Mars on the way to Jupiter, the Martians can read it and say, "Wow, those humans, they got something going."

Joy Harjo: [chuckles] Yes, right. As if they could read what we're writing.

Brian Lehrer: [laughs] They don't read English? In America, we think everybody is supposed to read English.

Joy Harjo: There you go. There you go. Political. [laughs]

Brian Lehrer: I can't help it. What gave you the idea to make it a children's book?

Joy Harjo: I think it's been a long time coming. I've had people come to me with proposals for films, all sorts of things. When this came up as a possible children's book, it made a lot of sense. Yes, it makes a lot of sense. I've been working on it with Random House's Lee wade, and then we picked the artist, Michaela Goade, a wonderful, wonderful artist. It was not her first illustration, but the Water Protectors is amazing.

When we were first talking about this collaboration, because it is a collaboration, she said, "Well, I can use Muskogee images and so I can research, or would you mind if I used images from my own Tlingit culture?" My thought is, "Well, we're bringing you on because of who you are." I told her to go for it, and she went for it. I think her images, they're profound and incredible.

Brian Lehrer: Tlingit culture, that's a Northwest nation. She's Alaskan, right?

Joy Harjo: Yes. Up in the Southeast, what they call the Southeast up there. She lives in Sitka near Juneau.

Brian Lehrer: Is there a way that you can start to describe the visuals on the air? I'm looking at the book, but it's a little beyond me. To put it into words, maybe you can do it and talk about how it reflects Tlingit culture or just what your visual and her visual idea for setting the poem Remember is.

Joy Harjo: Yes, I wish she were here to talk about it, but actually, this raven is very involved, I think, in their origin story. It starts out with, "Remember the sky you were born under, and here is raven in the dark sky," and then the raven, I think, who is white at one point. Then there's a story about how that changed. The images, I noticed, there's always a circling round. You could probably, even if you were to lay all the images out, there would be a huge circle. It's always emphasized that we're part of the circle, and it's always filled with these images, water images like kelp and all the animals.

One of my favorites here's a little seal going around and you can see the growing baby in the seal's body. It's so beautiful. She uses those motifs of the traditional art there, and yet it's so personable and warm. You always see the connection of the human beings with the plants and the trees and the animals. Her artwork is stunning.

Brian Lehrer: I see in the artist's note that's in the book, "The ocean and rainforest settings reflect our ancestral home in Southeast Alaska, and the animals and plants I included hold special cultural significance. I also hint at traditional stories, as well as referencing traditional dances and regalia." That's a lot of work for the illustrations to do. They also just jump off the page. They're so vivid and vibrant. I guess it's the kind of illustration that's classic children's book in a certain way that does jump off the page and makes kids of certain ages go, "Ooh, I want to look at that."

Joy Harjo: Yes, I think kids of all ages. We all have a child-- We all have that. I think it's a children's book, but I see it too as a book that it's a great book for a gift and so on. I also think of it too for myself personally as an honoring of teachers, because to even have these words or this poem, I've had many mentors in my life. One was a Tlingit woman who wrote poetry and translated and was very culturally centered, Nora Dauenhauer. We went on tour once years ago in the '80s, performing tours, a reading tour all around Alaska, everywhere from Fairbanks to Kotzebue to Barrow.

I think they said we did the first poetry reading up in Barrow years ago. When I see this, I think, "Okay, Nora, here it is, and thank you for your teachings and then all the teachings." We all have many teachers. One of my teachers has been the ocean. I can see the teachers or the teachings all through this book in the illustrations and in the words.

Brian Lehrer: 212-433-WNYC is our phone number as we can take one or two phone calls before we run out of time with former US Poet Laureate, Joy Harjo, whose classic poem, Remember, originally published in 1983 is out now in an illustrated children's book edition as we've been describing called Remember. Jane in the Bronx, you're on WNYC with Joy Harjo. Hi, Jane?

Jane: Hi. I feel honored to be on with a fantastic poet. I have a question. It's maybe a wonky poetry question. Poetry has always seemed off-putting to me. I read it silently in my room and I'm like, "I don't get it. What's it about? I'm not good enough to read this poem," but lately, through some circumstances, I've been in situations where people read their poems like you read so beautifully and the poem becomes alive to me. I've likened it to music. The reading it silently is like reading sheet music, but when the group plays it or the musician plays it, it comes alive.

My question is, do you think that poetry is really an oral tradition in an oral form, and then how do you reconcile your writing silently in your space and then it comes alive in a different way when you read it or other people read it? If you get my question, I'm wondering about that because poetry has become a lot more fantastic for me personally since I've hit on listening to it and interacting.

Joy Harjo: That's a good question, Jane in the Bronx. I really appreciate that. I'm going to borrow what you said, like reading sheet music, because that's the thing is so much of us are taught poetry in schools. I don't even know if they still teach it, but we used to have a poetry unit and everyone dreaded it because the teacher dreaded it. I think the reason we dreaded it was because we were supposed to read it in order to understand what the poem was saying. What if you listen to Hotel California by the Eagles and you are expected to explain it first or somebody else's lyrics?

It's not about that. It's about orality, even if it's on paper. Even a novel really has roots of orality in storytelling. It is meant to be spoken. I think a lot of poets would agree that when we are writing, it's about listening, but we are also taking into consideration the orality of the poem, even if it's on paper. That's always so important. It is definitely a sound art, and I put it there with music. If you go to the indigenous roots of all poetry, you will find music and dance there with it, all of them supporting each other. Yes, there's definitely something to that.

I know when I'm writing I read aloud and sometimes I sing it, but that's another story. It's definitely an oral art, and it's not about knowing exactly what the poem means. That's not what it's about, the music of it. It's about phrasing and time and timelessness and all, and enjoying the ride just like you would look at a painting and there's so many aspects of it that give meaning.

Brian Lehrer: If time was timeless, we would keep having this conversation, but we are out of it. What a treat to have Joy Harjo on reading Remember and talking about the new children's book version of it with illustrations by Michaela Goade. Joy, thank you so much. It's been wonderful.

Joy Harjo: Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC.

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