Click cover image to visit Joy Harjo online.
“I often painted or drew through the night, when most of the world slept and it was easier to walk through the membrane between life and death to bring back memory. I painted to the music of silence. It was here I could hear everything.” Joy Harjo
Joy Harjo’s memoir, Crazy Brave, is one wickedly beautiful piece of intensely personal poetic writing. This is not a fact crammed autobiography tossing up gossip and shallow dirt galore. This is a sharing of a poetic journey of becoming self in this strange world we inhabit. Harjo’s word craft strives to bridge the differences of perception and perceiving that often keep people unaware of their connections to each other and the universe. This is a memoir that offers a sense of what it means to be Joy as she unfolds to embrace her creative gifts. Don’t read this book expecting to learn all about Joy’s journey into Jazz or how she feels playing on the international stage as a musician-poet. Read this book as an opening act to learning about one woman’s love for art and music as life. This is a book about spirit and love and suffering along a path that knows no limits or boundaries between time, space or place. Certain experiences and people are shared as part of her journey as Joy contemplates past, present and future life. Dealings with lovers, friends and family are offered as part of the pathway to learning to speak and sing. It’s about making choices and listening with trust to the knowing even when it speaks ever so softly. It’s about making a commitment to the poetic spirit in the fullest sense of living.
“To imagine the spirit of poetry is much like imagining the shape and size of the knowing. It is a kind of resurrection light: it is the tall ancestor spirit who has been with me since the beginning, or a bear or a hummingbird. It is a hundred horses running the land in a soft mist, or it is a woman undressing for her beloved in firelight. It is none of these things. It is more than everything” (JH p. 164).
Like many poems Crazy Brave can be read in one sitting yet it will stay with you long after the last page. It may well haunt your dreams and intrude upon your waking hours. The poetic journey is one without beginning or end. It’s an ongoing adventure. A work in perpetual progress. This is a memoir that reveals the poetic power of prose that sings a life song.
om mani padme hum jewel in the lotus wahupa qi prana universal life energy
slpmartin said,
August 15, 2012 at 9:58 pm
The book sounds interesting…thanks for reviewing it.
47whitebuffalo said,
August 16, 2012 at 5:35 pm
Hello Charles. It’s a differently written memoir for sure. As a poet you might find Harjo’s manner of recounting what is significant to her very interesting. Thanks for reading and commenting.
clegyrboia said,
August 16, 2012 at 6:39 am
this made my day as i woke up to your post, i can relate to this. the words ‘i painted to the music of silence’ will stay with me for the rest of the day.
thank you
The publisher has not made the book available yet here in the UK and i do not like to use the big ambozone but i will buy this book somehow do you know of an other way i can buy it?
47whitebuffalo said,
August 16, 2012 at 5:34 pm
Hello mAgdA. Glad to make your day.
Is Abe Books.com of any help to you?
http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?an=harjo&sts=t&tn=crazy+brave
I’ve also been reading several of Joy Harjo’s books of poetry. Will post on those soon.
Hope all is well in your earthy art garden.