Joy Harjo Speaks With Cheryl Strayed at NYT

For the New York Times podcast "Sugar Calling," U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo discusses isolation and spirituality with the program's host, Cheryl Strayed. Strayed first encountered Harjo's poetry as a college student in Minnesota; for this podcast, Strayed called Harjo in Tulsa, Oklahoma, "the city where Joy was born." Picking up with the rest of the program's synopsis, from there: 

Joy opens up about leaving home to attend a Bureau of Indian Education boarding school in the 1960s. "For the first time, I was in a circle of relatives,” Joy says, “a circle of other students like me who were natives, who had been through a lot of the same stories.”

Joy then tells the story of being named the 23rd poet laureate of the United States: “It literally felt like lightning moving through my system.” She and Cheryl also discuss why it takes a good “working poem” to fight fear.

Continue at the New York Times.