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.
Couture has copied my things for years, in addition to countless other costume designers, claiming theirs were the original ideas. It's all part of the business, unfortunately.
I don't make judgments about my own work, and I don't analyze it; I just let it happen. That applies to everything I've done.
Art was, seriously, the only thing I'd ever wanted to own. It has always been for me a stable nourishment. I use it. It can change the way that I feel in the mornings.
I don't paint to live, I live to paint.
No nude, however abstract, should fail to arouse in the spectator some vestige of erotic feeling, even if it be only the faintest shadow - and if it does not do so it is bad art and false morals.
I hope you will understand that architecture has nothing to do with the inventions of forms. It is not a playground for children, young or old. Architecture is the real battleground of the spirit.
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