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MARY LUCIA: This is 89.3, The Current. I'm Mary Lucia. You know, poetry has a lot in common with music, so it's probably not a huge coincidence that the acclaimed poet Joy Harjo is also a saxophonist. Harjo is a member of the Muskogee tribe and both her music and poetry embrace Native American imagery and symbols. Her most recent book of poetry is How We Became Human, Selected Poems. She's in town to participate in the Literary Friendships event tonight at the Fitzgerald Theater in Saint Paul.

She'll be talking with writer Sandra Cisneros about their kinship as writers. Joy Harjo joins me to talk about both her literary and musical work. Hi, Joy.

JOY HARJO: Hi.

MARY LUCIA: So let me ask you this, I understand that you started to write poetry as sort of a political medium. Now can you tell me about that?

JOY HARJO: Poetry, well, I never-- I had no idea I was going to start writing poetry at all. It was music that I was first attracted to. But when I was 14, I went to band and the teacher said girls can't play sax. So I walked away. And then I had the proverbial stepfather who forbade me to sing.

MARY LUCIA: Really?

JOY HARJO: Yes. So I let it all go and went to-- wound up-- became a teenage mother, da da da da da. And then I wound up at school in pre-med. That lasted about two seconds and then I was back in art and painting. And then I heard poetry. And around the time that I heard Simon Ortiz, a Pueblo poet read poetry, I got to hear Galway Kinnell and then became involved, was learning Navajo language and then became--

Was very much involved in human-- you know, Native rights movements, human rights movements, liberation, you know, like, Native liberation. And the poetry really came out. It was the voice that came out of that need to speak as a Native woman and out of a need to speak of our experiences.

MARY LUCIA: So saxophone, I would imagine somebody saying to you, oh, women don't play this. Was that all you needed to have to say, OK, well, I'm playing it then? Or what drew you to the saxophone?

JOY HARJO: It took a long time for me to be able to say that, to get to that point. But I love the voice. For me, you know, the saxophone to me was about crying and laughing about thousands of years of tears and fighting and laughter and celebration. And when I heard Gato Barbieri-- was one of my influences. And I first heard him in Sandra Cisneros' living room. Her brothers were playing Gato Barbieri. And I said, who is that? And so then in my mind or wherever we put those things, I thought, OK, well, I'm going to do that someday because that's really what my poetry is about, all of that.

MARY LUCIA: Well, you're also a visual artist too. I mean, do you paint?

JOY HARJO: No. I used to, but I've done film work, I mean, video work. I've been working on some, but mostly, it's the music and the poetry.

MARY LUCIA: Why don't you paint anymore, Joy?

JOY HARJO: I keep saying I will when I'm 65.

[BOTH CHUCKLING]

When I turn 65, I'll start painting, you know?

MARY LUCIA: Now I know that a lot of Native musicians-- do you have any concern with being categorized as a Native artist or musician or poet? Are you hung up on the label? How do you feel about that?

JOY HARJO: You know, what I see happening more and more-- because I am a kind of-- somewhat of an iconoclast and I don't always fit. Even in my album, Native Joy For Real, and I don't have poetic justice anymore. I'm on my own solo, but solo and whatever musicians I take out with me. Even then, I'll take a form, like, a round dance form as I did on the song "Had It Up To Here," and blow it open. Instead of the one male voice singing, it's a male and a female and then it turned into, like, an argument at a dance.

And I brought in Charlie Hill on that one. But even then, it's about taking those forms and moving them. But lately, what's been concerning me is this kind of the Lakotazation or the plainsizing of what it means to be Indian. And that comes from-- it's not really about Lakotas at all or about the plains people. It has nothing to do with them. They're not part of that. It has to do with the Wild West show mentality that's over-- that overtakes any images of Indians.

And what I found out traveling to South Africa and other places is when I stand there, there's no place to put me because I don't look like Pocahontas. Now if I were to go there and wear my outfit, my dance-- the outfit I wear, then I would be more acceptable.

MARY LUCIA: Right.

JOY HARJO: And when I do that, if I dress all up like that. But I won't do that for performing.

MARY LUCIA: For any of our radio listeners who are wondering, Joy is really pretty.

[BOTH CHUCKLING]

JOY HARJO: Thank you.

MARY LUCIA: So should we take a listen maybe to something from the CD? We were talking about a couple of different tracks and you were talking about-- well, what is your favorite One can you pick a favorite one even?

JOY HARJO: It's hard. They're all so different.

MARY LUCIA: Mm-hmm.

JOY HARJO: But maybe because we're in the cities and this woman hanging actually came from my first time going to Chicago and going to the Chicago Indian Center. And there's a woman who sat at the edge of my memory from that place who said, you're not leaving. I'm not leaving here. I'm going to sit here at the edge of your memory until you write my story.

MARY LUCIA: That's beautiful.

JOY HARJO: And so it became the poem, The Woman Hanging From The 13Th Floor Window. And then it's turned into this song. And this song is on my new, relatively new CD called "Native Joy For Real."

[JOY HARJO - "THE WOMAN HANGING FROM THE 13TH FLOOR WINDOW"]

(SINGING) She's the woman hanging from the 13th floor. Her hands are pressed against the tenement building. She hangs from the 13th floor with a swirl of birds. They could be a halo or a storm of glass waiting to crush her. And we hear her crying, set me free, set me free.

MARY LUCIA: That's Joy Harjo. That is from the CD Native Joy For Real. That's "The Woman Hanging." Joy, has anyone ever compared your voice to Suzanne Vega?

JOY HARJO: Yes.

MARY LUCIA: Mm-hmm. It's got a very similar quality, in a great way though. I would hope that you take it as a compliment.

JOY HARJO: No, I do, I do.

MARY LUCIA: Well, Joy, thank you so much for coming in. It was a pleasure to meet you.

JOY HARJO: Yeah, nice meeting you too.

MARY LUCIA: That is poet and saxophonist Joy Harjo. You can catch her in conversation tonight at the Fitzgerald Theater from 8:00 to 9:30 PM at the Literary Friendships event hosted by Garrison Keillor. And there's more information about it on our website minnesotapublicradio.org This is 89.3, The Current.