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Thursday, June 20, 2019

Mvskoke poet, Joy Harjo, named as U.S. Poet Laureate (And, #BringBackTheGoodLuckCatByJoyHarjo)

The last twenty-four hours of my social media feeds have been wonderful because so many people are sharing the news that Carla Hayden named Joy Harjo as the U.S. Poet Laureate.

Most news headlines say "Native American" but I'm quick to name her nation, as it appears on her website:
Joy Harjo was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma and is a member of the Mvskoke Nation.
I've written about Joy's work several times. I have many of her books and CD's, but, as you might expect, I focus on her children's books. There are two: The Good Luck Cat and For A Girl Becoming. I especially like The Good Luck Cat because it is about a little girl and her cat, and because it is set in the present day. Here's the cover:



And one of the interior pages:



When I tweeted the news yesterday, I also suggested that people make sure they have The Good Luck Cat. I said they would probably have to get a used copy because it is out of print. I subsequently learned that the few used copies are very expensive.

 I know Joy was trying to get it back into print. So how about asking for it to be brought back into print? Will you join me in that?



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1 comment:

  1. Ava JarvisThursday, June 20, 2019 at 12:19:00 PM CDT

    This news brightens my day a lot. I can't join in on the social media campaign, unfortunately, as social media makes me very ill. Is there someone I can email or write a letter to? I see that Harcourt was the publisher for the book originally; but damned if I can figure out from their website how to contact their customer service for something other than ordering books.

    ReplyDelete


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