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.
Joy HarjoRead
I chose poetry. Actually, poetry chose me.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote reflects the idea that the artist's path often feels predetermined, as if they were drawn to it by a greater force.
Joy Harjo's quote speaks to the deep connection that artists and poets often feel towards their craft. It suggests that the vocation of poetry is not just a choice, but a calling, emphasizing a sense of destiny and natural affinity for the art form.
Themes
PoetryArtChoiceDestinyCreativity
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about creativity, one might include this quote to highlight the intrinsic connection between the poet and their art.
More from Joy Harjo
All quotes βIt'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.
Joy HarjoRead
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.
Joy HarjoRead
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.
Joy HarjoRead
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.
Joy HarjoRead
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.
Joy HarjoRead
Similar quotes
I still feel like I have a lot to learn in the realm of sound experimentation, and I think I would like things to get noisier and weirder and more distressed and more aggressive, but I don't know if that's something that would be suitable for public consumption.
Sufjan StevensRead
It's certainly true that when I was young, writing seemed to me so important that I would have sacrificed almost anything to it ... Because I thought of the world in which I wrote -- the world I created -- as somehow much more enormously alive than the world I was actually living in.
Alice MunroRead
I remember the first time I went out on the street to shoot pictures. I was in downtown Philadelphia, and I just took a walk and started making contact with people and photographing them, and I thought, 'I love this. This is what I want to do forever.' There was never another question.
Mary Ellen MarkRead
As Juan Gabriel, music is my religion, and mariachi is my devotion. And my songs are my prayers.
Juan GabrielRead
The great advantage of being a writer is that you can spy on people. You're there, listening to every word, but part of you is observing. Everything is useful to a writer, you see - every scrap, even the longest and most boring of luncheon parties.
Graham GreeneRead
When I sit down to make a sketch from nature, the first thing I try to do is to forget that I have ever seen a picture.
John ConstableRead