If the name of this year's U.S. Poet Laureate sounds familiar, that could be because Joy Harjo was also last year's pick for the job. In a statement announcing the reappointment, Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden called Harjo "an inspiring and engaging poet laureate," who would "help the Library showcase Native poets from coast-to-coast."
Harjo is the nation's first Native American Poet Laureate, and her own poetry often draws on her Muscogee Creek background, as well as feminist traditions. As Laureate she has been working on an upcoming anthology of Native poetry as well as an online map that the Library says will include "Native poets' biographies and recordings of them reading and discussing one of their poems."
Harjo recently kicked off a Washington Post/Library of Congress series, The Poetry of Home, where she read her her poem, "Perhaps The World Ends Here:"
The Poet Laureate's job is to promote appreciation and awareness of poetry.
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