ECU Big Read to conclude with reading by U.S. Poet Laureate
East Carolina University will host “A Reading by United States Poet Laureate Joy Harjo,” with a reading from her works and an audience question-and-answer session at 7 p.m. on March 30 at the Black Box Theater in the Main Campus Student Center.
“It is a great honor for ECU to host the first Native American Poet Laureate of the United States,” said Dr. Kirstin L. Squint, Thomas Harriot College of Art and Sciences Whichard Distinguished Professor in the Humanities and Native American literature specialist in the Department of English. “This is an event that we began planning in the spring of 2020, and I am thankful that Joy Harjo will finally be able to join us on campus, and for the Whichard professorship, which has made her visit possible.”
United States Poet Laureate Joy Harjo will conclude ECU’s Big Read — Greenville event series with a reading on March 30 at 7 p.m. at the Main Campus Student Center (Photo by Shawn Miller)
The free, public event is the culmination of a series of events funded by a National Endowment for the Arts grant, Big Read – Greenville, awarded to Dr. Marianne Montgomery, associate professor and chair of the Department of English.
During the past six weeks, Big Read – Greenville has brought the community together to celebrate reading, with more than 500 copies of Harjo’s “An American Sunrise” distributed free to the public. According to Montgomery, the goal of Big Read – Greenville was to educate the community about the history of southeastern Indigenous peoples, enrich the community through cultural events related to tribal nations and advance ECU’s mission to serve the public and transform the region.
“We are excited that ECU received this grant to promote and celebrate reading in our community and distribute lots of free books,” Montgomery said. “‘An American Sunrise’ is a wonderful book, and the Big Read events offered readers of all ages the chance to learn more about Harjo’s poetry and Indigenous lives and cultures today.”
Born in Tulsa, Okla., Harjo is an internationally renowned performer and writer of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation. She is the author of nine books of poetry, several plays and children’s books, and two memoirs — “Crazy Brave” and “Poet Warrior” — which invite readers to experience the heartaches, losses and humble realizations of her “poet-warrior” road.
In 2019, Harjo was appointed the 23rd U.S. Poet Laureate, the first Native American to hold the position and only the second person to serve three terms in the role. “Living Nations, Living Words,” an anthology of Native American writing, is Harjo’s companion anthology to her signature poet laureate project.
Her many writing awards include the 2019 Jackson Prize from the Poetry Society of America, the Ruth Lilly Prize from the Poetry Foundation, the 2015 Wallace Stevens Award from the Academy of American Poets and the William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America. In 2014, Harjo was inducted into the Oklahoma Writers Hall of Fame. A musician, Harjo performs with her saxophone nationally and internationally. Her most recent album is “I Pray for My Enemies.”
Harjo is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, the New Mexico Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts and the Rasmuson United States Artist Fellowship. She is a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, Board of Directors Chair of the Native Arts & Cultures Foundation and holds a Tulsa Artist Fellowship.
NEA Big Read is a program of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with Arts Midwest. Big Read – Greenville is presented by the Department of English in partnership with the Thomas Harriot College of Arts and Sciences Whichard Distinguished Professorship in the Humanities, the gender studies program, the ECU School of Music, Sheppard Memorial Library, Ledonia Wright Cultural Center, Down East Flick Fest, East Carolina Native American Organization, Oakwood School and the Pitt County Council on Aging.