Her ability to make the reader see and feel the seemingly intangible is unmatched. Through vivid natural imagery, she marries the physical and spiritual realms. Her work is rich and profound, filled with phrases that linger in the air as they roll off the tongue. Over the course of her career so far, she has published seven books of poetry, one memoir, and four albums of original music, in addition to many other projects. Harjo’s voracious appetite for words has never dulled. When she finished all the books in the first-grade classroom, Harjo’s teachers sent her on to the second-grade bookshelves. She loved language and craved more of it from a young age. As she grew older, words excited Harjo even more. “When Miles Davis was playing a solo,” said Harjo, “I could see the whole universe.” Music added new hues to the palette she used to color her world. Her earliest memories are filled with the sounds of her mother’s lilting voice and the jazzy strains of trumpet spilling through the car radio. Now an award-winning writer and musician, Harjo hardly recalls a time in her life when she wasn’t surrounded by art. Before she could write words, she could draw.

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