"Readers familiar with Joy Harjo's poetry, or, better, who have experienced her live performances, will recognize a familiar cadence and overarching mythic quality in the voice she creates for her newest work, "Crazy Brave." In a memoir steeped in her Mvskoke (also known as Muscogee) worldview, Harjo relates narratives of abuse, persistence and reclamation that tap into universal human emotions. Harjo's text resonates for and with readers, whether longtime fans or not; as she asserts, "A story matrix connects all of us."

Harjo's narrative situates her individual self within far-reaching communities of past and present, communities that shift and respond as she moves through childhood and boarding school days and into motherhood, marriage and college, in that order. She constructs her memoir in four directions: East, the direction of "sunrise" and "beginnings"; North, direction of "difficult teachers" and "cold wind"; West "the direction of endings"; and South, where is found "release," "fire" and, thankfully for fans of her work, "creativity.""

Get the Story:
"Crazy Brave," by Joy Harjo (The Minneapolis Star Tribune 7/8)