Joy Harjo

Magic City Books is thrilled to present An Evening with Joy Harjo to celebrate her two newest books, Weaving Sundown in a Scarlet Light: Fifty Poems for Fifty Years and Catching the Light on Thursday November 3. This free event starts at 7:00 pm at Philbrook Museum in the Patti Johnson Wilson Hall.

In Weaving Sundown in a Scarlet Light, Harjo selects her best poems from across fifty years, beginning with her early discoveries of her own voice and ending with moving reflections on our contemporary moment. Generous notes on each poem offer insight into Harjo’s inimitable poetics as she takes inspiration from Navajo horse songs and jazz, reckons with home and loss, and listens to the natural messengers of the earth.

Catching the Light is part of the “Why I Write” series published by Yale University Press. A lyrical meditation about the why of writing poetry, Joy Harjo reflects on significant points of illumination, experience, and questioning from her fifty years as a poet. Composed of intimate vignettes that take us through the author’s life journey as a youth in the late 1960s, a single mother, and a champion of Native nations, this book offers a fresh understanding of how poetry functions as an expression of purpose, spirit, community, and memory–in both the private, individual journey and as a vehicle for prophetic, public witness.

Weaving Sundown in a Scarlet Light will be published by W.W. Norton on November 1, 2022. Catching the Light is available now and signed copies are available at Magic City Books. You can pre-order Weaving Sundown in a Scarlet Light and/or purchase all of Joy Harjo’s books through the Magic City Books online store: https://magiccitybooks.square.site/shop/8.