I am a member of the Muskogee people. I'm a poet, a musician, a dreamer of sorts, a questioner. Like everyone else, I'm looking for answers of some sort or the other.
Interpretation
The quote expresses a deep connection to identity and the search for meaning through creativity.
Joy Harjo emphasizes the importance of belonging to a community while also embodying various roles such as a poet, musician, and dreamer. This reflects the universal human experience of seeking answers in life through expression and introspection, highlighting the intersection of culture, art, and personal exploration.
In practice
In a poetry reading, one might say, 'As Joy Harjo expresses, I too am a poet and a questioner in search of meaning.'
It's important as a writer to do my art well and do it in a way that is powerful and beautiful and meaningful, so that my work regenerates the people, certainly Indian people, and the earth and the sun. And in that way we all continue forever.
A story matrix connects all of us._x000D_ There are rules, processes, and circles of responsibility in this world. And the story begins exactly where it is supposed to begin. We cannot skip any part.
You just go where poetry is, whether it's in your heart or your mind or in books or in places where there's live poetry or recordings.
Bottom line, I have to follow what my soul says, or my spirit. And my spirit said that poetry and the arts should be without borders, should be without political borders.
I don't like this romanticization of Indian people in which Indian people are looked at as spiritual saviors, as people who have always taken care of the land. We're human beings. But I think different cultures have developed different aspects of humanness.
Humans are vulnerable and rely on the kindnesses of the earth and the sun; we exist together in a sacred field of meaning.
A poet can survive everything but a misprint.
A photographer must always work with the greatest respect for his subject and in terms of his own point of view.
A violinist had a violin, a painter his palette. All I had was myself. I was the instrument that I must care for.
Artists love other artists. Shadow artists are gravitating to their rightful tribe but cannot yet claim their birthright. Very often audacity, not talent, makes one person an artist and another a shadow artist-hiding in the shadows, afraid to step out and expose the dream to the light, fearful that it will disintegrate to the touch.
My art flatters nobody by imitation; it courts nobody by smoothness, tickles nobody by petiteness... there is no finish in nature.
The only pictures worth making are the ones that are playing with fire.
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