Joy Harjo and Tracy K. Smith – "This world is full of everything good, everything beautiful."
About this episode
Krista Tippett engages in a joyous conversation with poets Joy Harjo and Tracy K. Smith about poetry as a means of self-discovery amidst life's challenges.
From Krista: These days I sometimes have to remind myself to keep breathing. I think this is true of human beings across all of our differences and divides. But in a room in New York City just before the turn of this year, I was regrounded by this fierce and joyous conversation with Joy Harjo and Tracy K. Smith. I invite you to settle into your soft breathing body with these two wise women as companions and with a sense of poetry as a technology, as Tracy describes in her new book: a technology for rising to our truest, highest selves, even amidst grief and mystery and danger, and bearing witness to each other as we do so. I think all of us in the room left a little more lighthearted and alive as this conversation unfolded. I hope that will be your experience too. Tracy K. Smith and Joy Harjo are former U.S. poet laureates, beloved On Being guests, and friends. They are each wildly and deservedly awarded and not just as poets — Tracy also as a teacher and professor at Harvard, Joy as a saxophonist and painter. We were brought together at Symphony Space in Manhattan to celebrate their newest books: Fear Less by Tracy and Girl Warrior by Joy. Find an excellent transcript of this…
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