Contact: Sari Krosinsky, (505) 277-5813, michal@unm.edu Carolyn Gonzales, (505) 277-5920, cgonzal@unm.edu Oct. 24, 2005 RENOWNED NATIVE AMERICAN POET, ARTIST & MUSICIAN TO READ AT UNM NOV. 18 This fall renowned poet, artist and musician Joy Harjo returned to teach at her alma mater, the University of New Mexico. She's back as the first Joseph M. Russo Professor of Creative Writing and the first Native American to hold an endowed chair in the university's history.
Harjo will give her first Albuquerque reading since her return to UNM on Nov. 18 at 7 p.m. in the Student Union Building Acoma room as part of the creative writing program's Poets & Writers reading series. The Department of English is excited to welcome Harjo back. “We are thrilled at the return of Joy Harjo to UNM, where she studied and taught in earlier years,” David Richard Jones, department chair, said. In 1976, Harjo was one of the first to graduate from UNM with a bachelor's degree in creative writing. “The program was intimate, close,” she said. “I always felt great support. We had an ambitious reading series and we were always involved, making trips, doing readings, working together.” She later returned to UNM as a professor of English from 1991-1997. Harjo's poetry, which has been widely published and has won numerous awards, often evokes the presence of myth in urban life. “I write from experience in a dynamic world that is either in balance or askew between now and then, here and there,” she said. Her most recent book is “How We Became Human: New and Selected Poems,” for which she was named the 2003-2004 Writer of the Year – Poetry by the Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers. The third edition of Harjo's popular “She Had Some Horses” is slated for release this January, along with a spoken word compact disc of selected poems. As a teacher as well as a poet and artist, Harjo is a great asset to UNM. “My role as a teacher is to model, inspire and lead young artists and thinkers towards a life long process of hunger for knowledge and an ongoing practice of their art,” she said. “I expect only the best from students and always start from that position.” Harjo said that the connection she forged with New Mexico continues to lure her back. “My voice is here. This is one of my homes,” Harjo said. “What continues to bring me back here is the music, the poetry, the native and arts communities. Part of my soul lives here.” * * * Harjo's appointment is one of several major changes in UNM's creative writing program this fall. A master of fine arts degree in creative writing—the terminal degree in the field—replaced the master of arts concentration established in the 1950s, when it was one of the first degrees of its kind. The program also received the Joseph M. Russo Endowment of approximately $1.1 million, which funds Harjo's position. The endowment was matched by $500,000 from the state of New Mexico through Senate Bill 14. After serving in the U.S. Army during World War II, Russo received his doctorate in philosophy from the University of Minnesota in 1954. He spent his later years in New Mexico writing his personal philosophies. He died on Aug. 31, 2004.
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“I am still getting adjusted and finding my way back into the program,” Harjo said. “So far I'm especially impressed with the overall quality of the writing of the students in both of my classes this fall. The program has the potential to be one of the best in the country.”