Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA)   2020 Commencement Keynote Address to be Delivered by United States Poet Laureate and IAIA Alumna Joy Harjo

Two-term United States Poet Laureate and IAIA AlumnaJoy Harjo (Mvskoke Nation) ’68 has been selected to give the Institute of American Indian Arts’ 2020 commencement address at 11:00 am on Saturday, August 22, 2020.

To stream the event on-line, please visit  www.iaia.edu/commencement on the morning of commencement.

In addition to delivering the commencement address live from campus, Harjo will also be awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Humanities degree during the ceremony. Previous recipients of the IAIA Honorary Doctor of Humanities Degree have included notable persons such as Roxanne Swentzell (Santa Clara Pueblo), George Rivera (Pojoaque Pueblo), Dan Namingha (Hopi-Tewa), Kevin Red Star (Crow), Suzan Harjo(Cheyenne/Hodulgee Muscogee), James Luna (Luiseño), N. Scott Momaday (Kiowa), Tony Abeyta (Navajo), Dave Warren (Santa Clara Pueblo), David Bradley (Minnesota Chippewa Tribe), and Linda Lomahaftewa (Hopi/Choctaw).

Joy Har­jo, the 23rd Poet Lau­re­ate of the Unit­ed States, is a mem­ber of the Mvskoke Nation and belongs to Oce Vpofv (Hick­o­ry Ground). Born in Tul­sa, Okla­homa, she left home to attend high school at the inno­v­a­tive Insti­tute of Amer­i­can Indi­an Arts. Har­jo began writ­ing poet­ry as a mem­ber of the Uni­ver­si­ty of New Mexico’s Native stu­dent orga­ni­za­tion, the Kiva Club, in response to Native empow­er­ment move­ments. She went on to earn her MFA at the Iowa Writ­ers’ Work­shop and teach Eng­lish, Cre­ative Writ­ing, and Amer­i­can Indi­an Stud­ies at Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia-Los Ange­les, Uni­ver­si­ty of New Mex­i­co, Uni­ver­si­ty of Ari­zona, Ari­zona State, Uni­ver­si­ty of Illi­nois, Uni­ver­si­ty of Col­orado, Uni­ver­si­ty of Hawai’i, Insti­tute of Amer­i­can Indi­an Arts, and Uni­ver­si­ty of Ten­nessee, while per­form­ing music and poet­ry nation­al­ly and internationally.

Har­jo is the author of nine books of poet­ry, includ­ing her most recent, the high­ly acclaimed An Amer­i­can Sun­rise (2019); Con­flict Res­o­lu­tion for Holy Beings (2015), which was short­list­ed for the Grif­fin Prize and named a Notable Book of the Year by the Amer­i­can Library Asso­ci­a­tion; The Woman Who Fell From the Sky (1994), which received the Okla­homa Book Award; and In Mad Love and War (1990), which received an Amer­i­can Book Award and the Del­more Schwartz Memo­r­i­al Award. Her mem­oir, Crazy Brave, was award­ed the PENUSA Lit­er­ary Award in Cre­ative Non Fic­tion and the Amer­i­can Book Award. She has also pub­lished two award-win­ning children’s books, The Good Luck Cat and For a Girl Becom­ing; a col­lab­o­ra­tion with photographer/ astronomer Stephen Strom; an anthol­o­gy of North Amer­i­can Native women’s writ­ing; sev­er­al screen­plays and col­lec­tions of prose inter­views; and three plays, includ­ing Wings of Night Sky,Wings of Morn­ing Light,A Play, which she toured as a one-woman show and was recent­ly pub­lished by Wes­leyan Press. She is Exec­u­tive Edi­tor of the forth­com­ing anthol­o­gy When the Light of the World was Sub­dued, Our Songs Came Through – A Nor­ton Anthol­o­gy of Native Nations Poet­ry, to be released in 2020.

Harjo‘s awards for poet­ry include the Ruth Lily Prize for Life­time Achieve­ment from the Poet­ry Foun­da­tion, the Acad­e­my of Amer­i­can Poets Wal­lace Stevens Award, the New Mex­i­co Governor’s Award for Excel­lence in the Arts, a PENUSA Lit­er­ary Award, Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Fund Writ­ers’ Award, a Ras­mu­son US Artist Fel­low­ship, two NEA fel­low­ships, and a Guggen­heim Fellowship.
In addi­tion to serv­ing as U.S. Poet Lau­re­ate, Har­jo is a chan­cel­lor of the Acad­e­my of Amer­i­can Poets, holds a Tul­sa Artist Fel­low­ship, directs For Girls Becom­ing, an arts men­tor­ship pro­gram for young Mvskoke women, and is a found­ing board mem­ber of the Native Arts and Cul­tures Foun­da­tion. She lives in Tul­sa, Oklahoma.

IAIA President Dr. Robert Martin (Cherokee) commented “Congratulations Class of 2020!   I express my heartfelt gratitude and pride for the resilience and determination they have demonstrated in confronting the challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic.  Their success in completing the academic year and graduating is testament to their commitment, passion, sacrifice, and persistence.

I applaud each and every one of them for remaining focused on achieving their academic goal of earning a postsecondary degree or certificate. It is also an incredible honor for IAIA and our 2020 graduating class for Joy to join us on this day of celebration to deliver the commencement address.  Also, the awarding of an honorary doctorate will provide an opportunity for IAIA to acknowledge and express our admiration to one of our alumna for her outstanding contributions to IAIA, Native arts and cultures, New Mexico, and the nation”.