[Nonviolenza] Donna, vita, liberta'. 171

[Centro di ricerca per la pace Centro di ricerca per la pace <centropacevt at gmail.com>]

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DONNA, VITA, LIBERTA'
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A sostegno della lotta nonviolenta delle donne per la vita, la dignita' e i diritti di tutti gli esseri umani
a cura del "Centro di ricerca per la pace, i diritti umani e la difesa della biosfera" di Viterbo
Supplemento a "La nonviolenza e' in cammino" (anno XXIV)
Direttore responsabile: Peppe Sini. Redazione: strada S. Barbara 9/E, 01100 Viterbo, tel. 0761353532, e-mail: centropacevt at gmail.com
Numero 171 del 20 giugno 2023

In questo numero:
1. Nel ricordo di David Sassoli, dall'Italia corale la richiesta della liberazione di Leonard Peltier, da 47 anni detenuto innocente
2. Amnesty International: Urge clemency for native american activist
3. Raccolta fondi per aiutare la Biblioteca Libertaria "Armando Borghi" a fare fronte ai danni subìti a causa dell'alluvione del 16 e 17 maggio 2023
4. Scriviamo all'ambasciata dell'Iran in Italia per chiedere che cessino persecuzioni ed uccisioni
5. Sosteniamo il Coordinamento Italiano di Sostegno alle Donne Afghane
6. Alcuni riferimenti utili
7. Ripetiamo ancora una volta...
8. Layli Long Soldier intervista Joy Harjo. Beyond Language. Joy Harjo on writing her life in poetry

1. REPETITA IUVANT. NEL RICORDO DI DAVID SASSOLI, DALL'ITALIA CORALE LA RICHIESTA DELLA LIBERAZIONE DI LEONARD PELTIER, DA 47 ANNI DETENUTO INNOCENTE

Ai destinatari di questo appello chiediamo di diffonderlo ulteriormente: facciamo sentire la voce dell'umanita'.
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Leonard Peltier, l'illustre attivista nativo americano difensore dei diritti umani di tutti gli esseri umani e dell'intero mondo vivente, da 47 anni e' detenuto innocente in un carcere di massima sicurezza statunitense.
Condannato all'ergastolo da una giuria razzista, e' stato dimostrato che le cosiddette "testimonianze" contro di lui erano del tutto false, e che le cosiddette "prove" contro di lui erano anch'esse false.
Lo stesso pubblico ministero che sostenne l'accusa contro di lui ha successivamente riconosciuto l'errore giudiziario e chiesto la sua liberazione.
La liberazione di Leonard Peltier e' stata chiesta da innumerevoli prestigiose personalita' come Nelson Mandela e madre Teresa di Calcutta, Desmond Tutu e Shirin Ebadi, papa Francesco e il compianto presidente del Parlamento Europeo David Sassoli.
Due anni fa proprio David Sassoli fu autorevole voce di una rinnovata campagna per la liberazione di Leonard Peltier che coinvolse innumerevoli persone, associazioni ed istituzioni italiane, tra cui i sindaci di alcune delle principali citta'.
L'Onu ha chiesto la liberazione di Leonard Peltier.
Amnesty International ha chiesto la liberazione di Leonard Peltier.
Tutte queste voci chiedono al Presidente degli Stati Uniti d'America di concedere la grazia presidenziale che restituisca la liberta' a Leonard Peltier, un simbolo della lotta dei popoli oppressi in difesa dell'umanita' intera e dell'intero mondo vivente, un uomo generoso e coraggioso, un uomo ferocemente perseguitato, un uomo ingiustamente imprigionato da quasi mezzo secolo, un uomo innocente ormai vecchio e malato.
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Nell'imminenza dell'anniversario dello scontro a fuoco di Oglala del 26 giugno 1975, in cui furono uccisi due agenti dell'Fbi e un giovane militante dell'American Indian Movement (scontro a fuoco che faceva seguito a decine di omicidi di nativi americani da parte degli squadroni della morte sostenuti dall'Fbi nell'ambito di una scellerata campagna di persecuzione e di omicidi mirati intesa a reprimere il movimento di resistenza dei nativi americani), si svolgeranno in alcune citta' d'Italia iniziative per la liberazione di Leonard Peltier e di solidarieta' con i popoli nativi americani in lotta contro il genocidio, l'etnocidio e l'ecocidio, per difendere i diritti umani di tutti gli esseri umani e la Madre Terra.
Mitakuye Oyasin.
Free Leonard Peltier.
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I messaggi per richiedere al Presidente statunitense Biden la grazia presidenziale (anche molto semplici, come ad esempio: "Free Leonard Peltier") possono essere inviati attraverso la seguente pagina web della Casa Bianca: www.whitehouse.gov/contact/
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Per contattare il Comitato internazionale di difesa di Leonard Peltier visitare il sito: www.whoisleonardpeltier.info, e/o scrivere alla e-mail: contact at whoisleonardpeltier.info
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Per una informazione essenziale sulla figura e la lotta di Leonard Peltier segnaliamo alcuni testi fondamentali:
- Edda Scozza, Il coraggio d'essere indiano. Leonard Peltier prigioniero degli Stati Uniti, Erre Emme, Pomezia (Roma) 1996 (ora Roberto Massari Editore, Bolsena Vt).
- Peter Matthiessen, In the Spirit of Crazy Horse, 1980, Penguin Books, New York 1992 e successive ristampe; in edizione italiana: Peter Matthiessen, Nello spirito di Cavallo Pazzo, Frassinelli, Milano 1994.
- Leonard Peltier (con la collaborazione di Harvey Arden), Prison writings. My life is my sun dance, St. Martin's Griffin, New York 1999; in edizione italiana: Leonard Peltier, La mia danza del sole. Scritti dalla prigione, Fazi, Roma 2005.
- Jim Messerschmidt, The Trial of Leonard Peltier, South End Press, Cambridge, MA, 1983, 1989, 2002 (disponibile in edizione digitale nel sito dell'"International Leonard Peltier Defense Committee": www.whoisleonardpeltier.info).
- Michael Koch e Michael Schiffmann, Ein leben fur Freiheit. Leonard Peltier und der indianische Widerstand, TraumFaenger Verlag, Hohenthann 2016.
- Bruce E. Johansen, Encyclopedia of the American Indian Movement, Greenwood, Santa Barbara - Denver - Oxford, 2013 e piu' volte ristampata.
- Ward Churchill e Jim Vander Wall, Agents of Repression: The FBI's Secret Wars Against the Black Panther Party and the American Indian Movement, South End Press, Boulder, Colorado, 1988, 2002, Black Classic Press, Baltimore 2022.
- Ward Churchill e Jim Vander Wall, The COINTELPRO Papers: Documents from the FBI's Secret Wars Against Dissent in the United States, South End Press, Boulder, Colorado, 1990, 2002, Black Classic Press, Baltimore 2022.
- Dick Bancroft e Laura Waterman Wittstock, We Are Still Here. A photographic history of the American Indian Movement, Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2013.
- Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States, Beacon Press, Boston 2014.
Nella rete telematica e' disponibile in italiano una breve ma precisa esposizione della vicenda di Leonard Peltier con il titolo "Alcune parole per Leonard Peltier".

2. INIZIATIVE. AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL: URGE CLEMENCY FOR NATIVE AMERICAN ACTIVIST
[Dal sito www.amnesty.org riprendiamo e diffondiamo questo appello del 3 aprile 2023]

3 April 2023
URGENT ACTION
URGE CLEMENCY FOR NATIVE AMERICAN ACTIVIST
Native American activist Leonard Peltier has been imprisoned in the USA for over 46 years, some of which was spent in solitary confinement, serving two life sentences for murder despite concerns over the fairness of his trial. He has always maintained his innocence. Now 78 years old, he contracted COVID-19 in 2022 and suffers from several chronic health ailments, including one that is potentially fatal. Not eligible for parole again until 2024, his lawyers submitted a new petition for clemency in 2021. President Biden must grant Leonard Peltier clemency on humanitarian grounds and as a matter of justice.
TAKE ACTION: WRITE AN APPEAL IN YOUR OWN WORDS OR USE THIS MODEL LETTER
President Joseph Biden
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW
Washington, DC 20500
USA
White House Comment line: (202) 456-1111
Webform*: https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/
* A US-based address is needed for the White House webform.
International action takers, please use AI USA's address when filling out:
Amnesty International USA
311 West 43rd St. 7th Floor,
New York, NY 10036 USA
Dear President Biden,
Leonard Peltier is a member of the American Indian Movement (AIM), which promotes Native American rights. In 1975, during a confrontation involving AIM members, two FBI agents were killed. Leonard Peltier was convicted of their murders but has always denied killing the agents.
There are serious concerns about the fairness of proceedings leading to his trial and conviction, including for example the prosecution's withholding of evidence that might have assisted Leonard Peltier's defence.
In light of these concerns, the former US Attorney who supervised the prosecution team post-trial, James Reynolds, has since called for clemency.
Leonard Peltier is now 78 years old, has spent more than 46 years in US prisons, and has been repeatedly denied parole. There are serious concerns about Leonard Peltier's deteriorating health, including potential re-exposure to COVID-19. His lawyers submitted a new petition for clemency in 2021.
I urge you to grant Leonard Peltier clemency on humanitarian grounds and as a matter of justice.
Yours sincerely,
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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Leonard Peltier, an Anishinaabe-Lakota Native American, was a member of the American Indian Movement (AIM), which promotes Native American rights. On 26 June 1975, during a confrontation involving AIM members on the Pine Ridge Indian reservation in South Dakota, FBI agents Ronald Williams and Jack Coler were shot dead. Leonard Peltier was convicted of their murders in 1977 and sentenced to two consecutive life sentences. Leonard Peltier has always denied killing the agents.
A key alleged eyewitness to the shootings was Myrtle Poor Bear, a Lakota Native woman who lived at Pine Ridge. Based on her statement that she saw Leonard Peltier kill both FBI agents, Leonard Peltier was extradited from Canada, where he had fled following the shootings. However, Myrtle Poor Bear later retracted her testimony. Although not called as a prosecution witness at trial, the trial judge refused to allow Leonard Peltier's attorneys to call Myrtle Poor Bear as a defense witness on the grounds that her testimony "could be highly prejudicial to the government". In 2000, Myrtle Poor Bear issued a public statement to say that her original testimony was a result of months of threats and harassment from FBI agents.
In 1980 documents were released to Leonard Peltier's lawyers as a result of a lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act. The documents contained ballistics evidence which might have assisted Leonard Peltier's case, but which had been withheld by the prosecution at trial. However, in 1986, the U.S. Court of Appeal for the Eighth Circuit denied Leonard Peltier a retrial, stating that: "We recognize that there is some evidence in this record of improper conduct on the part of some FBI agents, but we are reluctant to impute even further improprieties to them."
The U.S. Parole Commission has always denied parole to Leonard Peltier on the grounds that he did not accept criminal responsibility for the murders of the two FBI agents. This is even though, after one such hearing, the Commission acknowledged that, "the prosecution has conceded the lack of any direct evidence that you personally participated in the executions of two FBI agents". Leonard Peltier would not be eligible for another parole hearing until 2024. Furthermore, James H. Reynolds, the US Attorney whose office handled the criminal case prosecution and appeal of Leonard Peltier, wrote that he supported clemency "in the best interest of Justice in considering the totality of all matters involved."
Leonard Peltier suffers from a variety of ailments, including kidney disease, Type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, a heart condition, a degenerative joint disease, and constant shortness of breath and dizziness. A stroke in 1986 left him virtually blind in one eye. In January 2016, doctors diagnosed him with a life-threatening condition: a large and potentially fatal abdominal aortic aneurysm that could rupture at any time and would result in his death. He currently uses a walker due to limited mobility and contracted COVID-19 in 2022. He continues to be at risk of re-infection while in detention.
In 2015, several Nobel Peace Prize winners—including Archbishop Desmond Tutu—called for Leonard Peltier's release. The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and the National Congress of American Indians have also called for his release. Leonard Peltier's attorney applied for clemency to President Biden in July 2021. President Biden committed to granting clemency on a rolling basis during his administration.
However, as of February 2023, no decision has been made on his application. He has previously sought clemency, most recently from President Obama in 2016, but his petition has been denied each time.
Due to the numerous issues at trial, the exhaustion of all his legal avenues for appeal, the amount of time he has already served, his continued maintenance of innocence along with his chronic health issues, Amnesty International supports calls for clemency for Leonard Peltier.
PREFERRED LANGUAGE TO ADDRESS TARGET: English
You can also write in your own language.
PLEASE TAKE ACTION AS SOON AS POSSIBLE UNTIL: 29 May 2023
Please check with the Amnesty office in your country if you wish to send appeals after the deadline.
NAME AND PRONOUN: Leonard Peltier - He/Him
LINK TO PREVIOUS UA: https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/amr51/5208/2022/en/

3. APPELLI. RACCOLTA FONDI PER AIUTARE LA BIBLIOTECA LIBERTARIA "ARMANDO BORGHI" A FARE FRONTE AI DANNI SUBITI A CAUSA DELL'ALLUVIONE DEL 16 E 17 MAGGIO 2023
[Dalla Biblioteca Libertaria "Armando Borghi" (e-mail: bibliotecaborghi1916 at gmail.com) riceviamo e diffondiamo con viva solidarieta']

Le inondazioni che il 16 e 17 maggio 2023 hanno colpito molte localita' dell'Emilia Romagna, compresa Castel Bolognese, hanno provocato enormi danni alla Biblioteca Libertaria "Armando Borghi" (in sigla: BLAB).
In questo momento particolarmente difficile della sua vita la BLAB fa appello a tutti coloro che apprezzano la sua attivita'.
Per far fronte ai danni subìti e ripartire serviranno molto lavoro e molti soldi.
Se volete aiutarci a superare questo momento di notevole difficolta', potete inviare un contributo economico fin da ora.
Anche somme modeste possono servire.
Con il vostro aiuto, tutti insieme, ce la possiamo fare.
Per inviare le sottoscrizioni si puo' effettuare un bonifico al conto corrente bancario della BLAB, presso CREDIT AGRICOLE - Agenzia di Castel Bolognese. Il codice IBAN, intestato a Biblioteca Libertaria Armando Borghi - Soc. Coop. e': IT16 C 06230 67530 000030040805

4. REPETITA IUVANT. SCRIVIAMO ALL'AMBASCIATA DELL'IRAN IN ITALIA PER CHIEDERE CHE CESSINO PERSECUZIONI ED UCCISIONI

Carissime e carissimi, gentilissime e gentilissimi,
vi proponiamo di scrivere all'ambasciata dell'Iran in Italia per chiedere al governo di quel paese che cessino le persecuzioni e le uccisioni.
Gli indirizzi di posta elettronica cui inviare le lettere sono i seguenti: iranemb.rom at mfa.gov.ir, iranconsulate.rom at mfa.gov.ir, rom.media at mfa.gov.ir
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Vi proponiamo un possibile testo essenziale:
Egregio ambasciatore,
le chiediamo di trasmettere al governo del suo Paese questa nostra richiesta che cessino le persecuzioni e le uccisioni.
E' dovere di ogni persona, di ogni societa', di ogni ordinamento giuridico rispettare la vita, la dignita' e i diritti di tutte le donne e di tutti gli uomini.
Tutti gli esseri umani sono eguali in dignita' e diritti, tutti gli esseri umani hanno diritto alla vita e alla liberta'.
Siamo solidali con le donne iraniane - e con gli uomini che si sono posti al loro ascolto e alla loro sequela - nell'impegno nonviolento per i diritti umani di tutti gli esseri umani.
Distinti saluti,
Nome e cognome, luogo e data, recapito di chi scrive.
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Carissime e carissimi, gentilissime e gentilissimi,
vi proponiamo anche di far circolare questa proposta.
Adoperiamoci affinche' tante persone, tante associazioni, tante istituzioni di tutto il mondo chiedano al governo iraniano che cessino persecuzioni e uccisioni.
Sosteniamo le donne iraniane - e gli uomini che si sono posti al loro ascolto e alla loro sequela - nell'impegno nonviolento per i diritti umani di tutti gli esseri umani.
Grazie di cuore per quanto vorrete fare.

5. REPETITA IUVANT. SOSTENIAMO IL COORDINAMENTO ITALIANO DI SOSTEGNO ALLE DONNE AFGHANE

Sosteniamo il Coordinamento Italiano di Sostegno alle Donne Afghane (CISDA).
Per contatti: e-mail: cisdaonlus at gmail.com, sito: www.cisda.it

6. PER SAPERE E PER AGIRE. ALCUNI RIFERIMENTI UTILI

Segnaliamo il sito della "Casa delle donne" di Milano: www.casadonnemilano.it
Segnaliamo il sito della "Casa internazionale delle donne" di Roma: www.casainternazionaledelledonne.org
Segnaliamo il sito delle "Donne in rete contro la violenza": www.direcontrolaviolenza.it
Segnaliamo il sito de "Il paese delle donne on line": www.womenews.net
Segnaliamo il sito della "Libreria delle donne di Milano": www.libreriadelledonne.it
Segnaliamo il sito della "Libera universita' delle donne" di Milano: www.universitadelledonne.it
Segnaliamo il sito di "Noi donne": www.noidonne.org
Segnaliamo il sito di "Non una di meno": www.nonunadimeno.wordpress.com

7. REPETITA IUVANT. RIPETIAMO ANCORA UNA VOLTA...

... ripetiamo ancora una volta che occorre un'insurrezione nonviolenta delle coscienze e delle intelligenze per contrastare gli orrori piu' atroci ed infami che abbiamo di fronte, per affermare la legalita' che salva le vite, per richiamare ogni persona ed ogni umano istituto ai doveri inerenti all'umanita'.
Occorre opporsi al maschilismo, e nulla e' piu' importante, piu' necessario, piu' urgente che opporsi al maschilismo - all'ideologia, alle prassi, al sistema di potere, alla violenza strutturale e dispiegata del maschilismo: poiche' la prima radice di ogni altra violenza e oppressione e' la dominazione maschilista e patriarcale che spezza l'umanita' in due e nega piena dignita' e uguaglianza di diritti a meta' del genere umano e cosi' disumanizza l'umanita' intera; e solo abolendo la dominazione maschilista e patriarcale si puo' sconfiggere la violenza che opprime, dilania, denega l'umanita'; solo abolendo la dominazione maschilista e patriarcale l'umanita' puo' essere libera e solidale.
Occorre opporsi al razzismo, alla schiavitu', all'apartheid. Occorre far cessare la strage degli innocenti nel Mediterraneo ed annientare le mafie schiaviste dei trafficanti di esseri umani; semplicemente riconoscendo a tutti gli esseri umani in fuga da fame e guerre, da devastazioni e dittature, il diritto di giungere in salvo nel nostro paese e nel nostro continente in modo legale e sicuro. Occorre abolire la schiavitu' in Italia semplicemente riconoscendo a tutti gli esseri umani che in Italia si trovano tutti i diritti sociali, civili e politici, compreso il diritto di voto: la democrazia si regge sul principio "una persona, un voto"; un paese in cui un decimo degli effettivi abitanti e' privato di fondamentali diritti non e' piu' una democrazia. Occorre abrogare tutte le disposizioni razziste ed incostituzionali che scellerati e dementi governi razzisti hanno nel corso degli anni imposto nel nostro paese: si torni al rispetto della legalita' costituzionale, si torni al rispetto del diritto internazionale, si torni al rispetto dei diritti umani di tutti gli esseri umani. Occorre formare tutti i pubblici ufficiali e in modo particolare tutti gli appartenenti alle forze dell'ordine alla conoscenza e all'uso delle risorse della nonviolenza: poiche' compito delle forze dell'ordine e' proteggere la vita e i diritti di tutti gli esseri umani, la conoscenza della nonviolenza e' la piu' importante risorsa di cui hanno bisogno.
Occorre opporsi a tutte le uccisioni, a tutte le stragi, a tutte le guerre. Occorre cessare di produrre e vendere armi a tutti i regimi e i poteri assassini; abolire la produzione, il commercio, la disponibilita' di armi e' il primo necessario passo per salvare le vite e per costruire la pace, la giustizia, la civile convivenza, la salvezza comune dell'umanita' intera. Occorre abolire tutte le organizzazioni armate il cui fine e' uccidere. Occorre cessare immediatamente di dissipare scelleratamente ingentissime risorse pubbliche a fini di morte, ed utilizzarle invece per proteggere e promuovere la vita e il benessere dell'umanita' e dell'intero mondo vivente.
Occorre opporsi alla distruzione di quest'unico mondo vivente che e' la sola casa comune dell'umanita' intera, di cui siamo insieme parte e custodi. Non potremo salvare noi stessi se non rispetteremo e proteggeremo anche tutti gli altri esseri viventi, se non rispetteremo e proteggeremo ogni singolo ecosistema e l'intera biosfera.
Opporsi al male facendo il bene.
Opporsi alla violenza con la scelta nitida e intransigente della nonviolenza.
Oppresse e oppressi di tutti i paesi, unitevi nella lotta per la comune liberazione e la salvezza del'umanita' intera.
Salvare le vite e' il primo dovere.

8. MAESTRE. LAYLI LONG SOLDIER INTERVISTA JOY HARJO. BEYONG LANGUAGE. JOY HARJO ON WRITING HER LIFE IN POETRY
[Dal sito www.poetryfoundation.org riprendiamo e diffondiamo la seguente intervista pubblicata il 9 maggio 2017.
Layli Long Soldier earned a BFA from the Institute of American Indian Arts and an MFA with honors from Bard College. She is the author of the chapbook Chromosomory (2010) and the full-length collection Whereas (2017), which won the National Books Critics Circle award and was a finalist for the National Book Award. She has been a contributing editor to Drunken Boat and poetry editor at Kore Press; in 2012, her participatory installation, Whereas We Respond, was featured on the Pine Ridge Reservation. In 2015, Long Soldier was awarded a National Artist Fellowship from the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation and a Lannan Literary Fellowship for Poetry. She was awarded a Whiting Writer's Award in 2016. Long Soldier is a citizen of the Oglala Lakota Nation and lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Joy Harjo (b. 1951) (sito: www.joyharjo.com). Joy Harjo was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and is a member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation. She earned her BA from the University of New Mexico and MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop. Harjo draws on First Nation storytelling and histories, as well as feminist and social justice poetic traditions, and frequently incorporates indigenous myths, symbols, and values into her writing. Her poetry inhabits landscapes - the Southwest, Southeast, but also Alaska and Hawaii - and centers around the need for remembrance and transcendence. She once commented, "I feel strongly that I have a responsibility to all the sources that I am: to all past and future ancestors, to my home country, to all places that I touch down on and that are myself, to all voices, all women, all of my tribe, all people, all earth, and beyond that to all beginnings and endings. In a strange kind of sense [writing] frees me to believe in myself, to be able to speak, to have voice, because I have to; it is my survival." Her work is often autobiographical, informed by the natural world, and above all preoccupied with survival and the limitations of language. She was named U.S. poet laureate in June 2019.
A critically-acclaimed poet, Harjo's many honors include the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native Writers Circle of the Americas, the Josephine Miles Poetry Award, the Wallace Stevens Award from the Academy of American Poets, the William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America, and the American Indian Distinguished Achievement in the Arts Award. She has received fellowships from the Arizona Commission on the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Rasmuson Foundation, and the Witter Bynner Foundation. In 2017 she was awarded the Ruth Lilly Prize in Poetry. In addition to writing poetry, Harjo is a noted teacher, saxophonist, and vocalist. She performed for many years with her band, Poetic Justice, and currently tours with Arrow Dynamics. She has released four albums of original music, including Red Dreams, A Trail Beyond Tears (2010), and won a Native American Music Award for Best Female Artist of the Year in 2009. She has been performing her one-woman show, Wings of Night Sky, Wings of Morning Light, since 2009 and is currently at work on a musical play, We Were There When Jazz Was Invented. She has taught creative writing at the University of New Mexico and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana and is currently Professor and Chair of Excellence in Creative Writing at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Harjo is a founding board member of the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation. Harjo's first volume of poetry was published in 1975 as a nine-poem chapbook titled The Last Song. These early compositions, set in Oklahoma and New Mexico, reveal Harjo's remarkable power and insight into the fragmented history of indigenous peoples. Commenting on the poem "3 AM" in World Literature Today, John Scarry wrote that it "is a work filled with ghosts from the Native American past, figures seen operating in an alien culture that is itself a victim of fragmentation... Here the Albuquerque airport is both modern America's technology and moral nature - and both clearly have failed." What Moon Drove Me to This? (1980), Harjo's first full-length volume of poetry, appeared four years later and includes the entirety of The Last Song. The book continues to blend everyday experiences with deep spiritual truths. In an interview with Laura Coltelli in Winged Words: American Indian Writers Speak, Harjo shared the creative process behind her poetry: "I begin with the seed of an emotion, a place, and then move from there... I no longer see the poem as an ending point, perhaps more the end of a journey, an often long journey that can begin years earlier, say with the blur of the memory of the sun on someone's cheek, a certain smell, an ache, and will culminate years later in a poem, sifted through a point, a lake in my heart through which language must come." Harjo's collections of poetry and prose record that search for freedom and self-actualization. In books such as She Had Some Horses (1983; reissued 2008), Harjo incorporates prayer-chants and animal imagery, achieving spiritually resonant effects. One of Harjo's most frequently anthologized poems, "She Had Some Horses," describes the "horses" within a woman who struggles to reconcile contradictory personal feelings and experiences to achieve a sense of oneness. The poem concludes: "She had some horses she loved. / She had some horses she hated. / These were the same horse." As Scarry noted, "Harjo is clearly a highly political and feminist Native American, but she is even more the poet of myth and the subconscious; her images and landscapes owe as much to the vast stretches of our hidden mind as they do to her native Southwest." Indeed nature is central to Harjo's work. The prose poetry collection Secrets from the Center of the World (1989) features color photographs of the Southwest landscape accompanying Harjo’s poems. Praising the volume in the Village Voice, Dan Bellm wrote, “As Harjo notes, the pictures 'emphasize the "not-separate" that is within and that moves harmoniously upon the landscape.'" Bellm added, "The book's best poems enhance this play of scale and perspective, suggesting in very few words the relationship between a human life and millennial history." Harjo's work is also deeply concerned with politics, tradition, remembrance, and the transformational aspects of poetry. In Mad Love and War (1990) relates various acts of violence, including the murder of an Indian leader and attempts to deny Harjo her heritage, explores the difficulties indigenous peoples face in modern American society. The second half of the book frequently emphasizes personal relationships and change. Leslie Ullman noted in the Kenyon Review, that "like a magician, Harjo draws power from overwhelming circumstance and emotion by submitting to them, celebrating them, letting her voice and vision move in harmony with the ultimate laws of paradox and continual change." Highly praised, the book won an American Book Award and the Delmore Schwartz Memorial Award. In her next books such as The Woman Who Fell from the Sky (1994), based on an Iroquois myth about the descent of a female creator, A Map to the Next World: Poetry and Tales (2000), and How We Became Human: New and Selected Poems (2002), Harjo continues to draw on mythology and folklore to reclaim the experiences of native peoples as various, multi-phonic, and distinct. Using myth, old tales and autobiography, Harjo both explores and creates cultural memory through her illuminating looks into different worlds. As poet Adrienne Rich said, "I turn and return to Harjo's poetry for her breathtaking complex witness and for her world-remaking language: precise, unsentimental, miraculous." In recent collections of poetry and prose Harjo has continued to "expand our American language, culture, and soul," in the words of Academy of American Poets Chancellor Alicia Ostriker; in her judge's citation for the Wallace Stevens Award, which Harjo won in 2015, Ostriker went on to note that Harjo's "visionary justice-seeking art transforms personal and collective bitterness to beauty, fragmentation to wholeness, and trauma to healing." Harjo's memoir Crazy Brave (2012) won the American Book Award and the 2013 PEN Center USA prize for creative nonfiction. In an interview with Jane Ciabattari, Harjo discussed the meaning of her last name ("so brave you're crazy") and her work's attempt to confront colonization. "Who are we before and after the encounter" of colonization, Harjo asked. "And how do we imagine ourselves with an integrity and freshness outside the sludge and despair of destruction? I am seven generations from Monahwee, who, with the rest of the Red Stick contingent, fought Andrew Jackson at The Battle of Horseshoe Bend in what is now known as Alabama. Our tribe was removed unlawfully from our homelands. Seven generations can live under one roof. That sense of time brings history close, within breathing distance. I call it ancestor time. Everything is a living being, even time, even words." Harjo's other recent books include the children and young adult's book, For a Girl Becoming (2009), the prose and essay collection Soul Talk, Song Language (2011), and the poetry collection Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings (2015), which was shortlisted for the International Griffin Poetry Prize. Consistently praised for the depth and thematic concerns in her writings, Harjo has emerged as a major figure in contemporary American poetry. While Harjo's work is often set in the Southwest, emphasizes the plight of the individual, and reflects Creek values, myths, and beliefs, her oeuvre has universal relevance. Bellm asserted: "Harjo's work draws from the river of Native tradition, but it also swims freely in the currents of Anglo-American verse - feminist poetry of personal/political resistance, deep-image poetry of the unconscious, 'new-narrative' explorations of story and rhythm in prose-poem form." According to Field, "To read the poetry of Joy Harjo is to hear the voice of the earth, to see the landscape of time and timelessness, and, most important, to get a glimpse of people who struggle to understand, to know themselves, and to survive." Harjo told Contemporary Authors: "I agree with Gide that most of what is created is beyond us, is from that source of utter creation, the Creator, or God. We are technicians here on Earth, but also co-creators. I'm still amazed. And I still say, after writing poetry for all this time, and now music, that ultimately humans have a small hand in it. We serve it. We have to put ourselves in the way of it, and get out of the way of ourselves. And we have to hone our craft so that the form in which we hold our poems, our songs in attracts the best."]

I first met Joy Harjo more than a decade ago, during my undergraduate studies at the Institute of American Indian Arts where she was a visiting poet. I remember an intimate gathering in the campus hogan with Joy and my fellow creative writing students. I remember a lit fire in the wood stove. And more than anything, I remember Joy talking about her writing process: "I don't do linguistic gymnastics," she said confidently, so matter-of-factly. It's important to write poems with a sense of purpose, she explained to us. Those words made a lasting impression. I took her words to mean, Don't waste your time or mess around. Make it count! But Joy's work as a poet not only counts, it is necessary and vital. She gives voice to those who are often unheard, through poems that are personal and revealing; loadstones to pull us close. All the while, there's an openness, a radiation, a reaching out to future generations. In her own words, "I know there is something larger than the memory of a dispossessed people. We have seen it."
Joy is the author of numerous books, including eight collections of poetry, and the recipient of many awards, including this year's Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize. We spoke by phone from Harjo's current home in Tennessee, where she holds the John C. Hodges Chair of Excellence in creative writing at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. The following interview was edited and condensed.
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- In the introduction to your 2002 collection, How We Became Human, you wrote about how poetry showed up in your life during an intensely difficult time. "Poetry approached me in that chaos of raw inverted power and leaned over and tapped me on the shoulder, said, 'You need to learn how to listen, you need grace, you need to learn how to speak.' ... The journey toward poetry worked exactly as the process of writing a poem. It started from the inside out, then turned back in to complete a movement." I am most curious about your line regarding the process of writing a poem and the journey toward poetry, which is a journey that I think poets are always on. It's not a done deal. Right?
- [Laughing] Right. No, it's never a done deal.
I think I was aware of that journey in poetry as a child, even before I had the words to speak. My grandmother was a painter, and she also collected Native art and ancient Chinese art. So my father had some of her pieces. Contemplation, I believe, is the word I'm looking for. I believe children can be extremely contemplative because as a child you feel things so deeply, so strongly; there's a presence, an alertness of the senses. And I remember it felt like I was learning contemplation there. I would look at her paintings for a long time. Then I would follow the images - the line, the color, the subject. We had some Chinese engraved pots - there were these people [on the pots] doing things - and I would sit there, be there in their presence. It would feel like as if I was in the presence of poets. They were thinking and talking philosophically, and, you know, there I was - a little Indian kid in Oklahoma sitting in this house, in these rows of houses put together for post-war veterans. I would say words I'd heard these imaginary figures say, phrases like poetry. I would repeat them aloud, playing with sound. I also found peace outside. There was the poetry and contemplation of the sun coming up, the different trees, all the animals, insects, and birds in the yard.
I think children naturally turn toward that, toward the making. I wasn't writing, but there was an awareness. And I think because we're human beings, there's always a sense of language. Even looking at the philosophers on these Chinese bowls or two horse figures in a painting, there's still language there. Poetry is the closest step to beyond language, beyond the words. You absolutely need the words, but you employ language in poetry in a way that's kinetic, spiritual, and sensual. At least for me, that's my approach to writing. I feel it.
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- I still feel new to writing, in many ways, and what comes with it. One thing I'm realizing is that making art and poetry is not just about me and the page. Sometimes I wish it were. But there's so much more with regard to people, community, and relationships. Could you share anything with younger writers about all that comes with making art and writing?
- I remember going to my first writing workshop at the University of New Mexico (UNM). I had inspirational teachers there. And they gave me permission. I remember, early on, thinking that there was such a responsibility with language. I would almost envy my non-Native classmates because they wrote about anything they wanted. It doesn't mean I didn't have the ability to write about anything I wanted, but I feel - and I think a lot of Native writers feel this and know this - the word is so loaded. We come from cultures that still understand that to speak something is a powerful and dangerous thing, but it can bring incredible beauty. It shifts. You know that you can shift things. Whether we're aware of it consciously when we're writing, [this awareness] has been so built in, from day one. And when you're dealing with poetry, that's language at its most fundamental power. So I've always felt quite a responsibility.
Yet, at the other side of it, there's this immense sense of play that is so compelling. It's unlike anything else. Even if it's English - which is the language that colonized my people - there's always this incredible sense of responsibility that's right up against this incredible sense of play and possibility. And even magic. It's all there, together.
But I think as Natives, given our history here and our relationship with the English language, we realize we are taking people with us. Our whole history is linked with language. I mean, we're in the predicament we're in now because of language, all our treaties and signing this and that. It's all because of language and the way it's been used.
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- Can you think of any pieces or even books you've written in which you felt that sense of play? Or are there certain time periods that you look back on as important turning points?
- When I was an art major at UNM, it was at the height of the Native rights movement. I remember being pregnant with Rainy during [the takeover of] Wounded Knee. I wanted to go up there, but I couldn't because I was pregnant. I wanted to surround my forming daughter with a peace that had been hard to find in our families. I began to veer from painting to writing poetry because I realized that the voices speaking Native poetry and experience were, for the most part, male, and our experience during those times was similar - we were fighting for our rights but so different. There were the everyday struggles. I remember going to the Save the Children Foundation once because I was desperate for help. I got some money from the tribe, and I did work study at Native studies, but it wasn't enough. I always paid the rent up. I'd buy everybody a new set of clothes and get my books. And then the struggle was on to try to keep enough food. That has everything to do with writing poetry. As Audre Lorde said, there is no separation.
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- Yes, I've been there.
- Poetry was one of my first loves as a child. I read Dickinson, Whitman, the usual canon. But I also came to poetry through song lyrics, especially my mother's songwriting. There was also poetry in oratory. I heard Martin Luther King, I was around people like Vine Deloria. Later, I got to spend time with him. I'd go sit with him in Li'l Abner's in Tucson. He and I had a lot of similar metaphysical interests. He was our James Baldwin. When I started writing, I was around people like him. I was around Leslie Silko, who at that time had started teaching at UNM. I remember going to her office and hanging out. Rudy Anaya. And then, Ishmael Reed would come to town. And Jim Welch; I remember meeting him. I was the quiet person in the room, watching, listening, not saying anything. I often could not speak from a deeply ingrained fear of speaking. Maybe that's why I admired poetry and oratory so much.
So I think when that poetry spirit came, it was like, "OK, enough of this! We're going to teach you how to stand with us, to sing with us." Not as a solo poet, but... you realize, you have all these people with you. Maya Angelou said, very eloquently, "You bring your people with you." I love that. So I got the opportunity through watching and being in the times I came of age in to see our people stand up and say, "This is wrong! You can't do this to us anymore." It was very empowering because I remember what my father went through - and even my mother - being Indian in Oklahoma. It was quite an amazing moment of galvanization, hearing the people speaking and the poets coming out of that.
So I came into my work as a poet with a sense of responsibility. Knowing we could all die. Our words mattered. I came into poetry feeling as though, on some level, these words were not just mine but my grandparents', their parents'. And I was helping others speak, especially Native women. Because, you know, the men were always talking. My spirit asked, where are the Native women's voices? Their voices are different from these guys' - and these guys are good speakers. I listened to them, and I watched them. Yet my life was about trying to put food on the table. We cooked everything; we didn't have money to go out to get McDonald's or go anywhere. That wasn't even in our consciousness then. It was a different kind of world. And that was some of the criticism I faced for majoring in poetry. How are you going to take care of your family with poetry? What does poetry matter? But I was thinking about what was going on at Wounded Knee in our day-to-day lives as Native people... just as it continues now, at Standing Rock, in our Native communities throughout this hemisphere. We were struggling with just basic considerations of life and the quality of life. Our art had to somehow intersect with that.
But those earliest poems were so raw. And it was like, OK, what is our experience? There was a lot of violence. There was a lot of drinking, even on my part. My earliest poems dealt with so much of that rawness; it was discovery. I thought, I'm going to see what a poem can do. What do you put in a poem? What do you leave out? What kind of medium is this? It's different from paint. And what can a poem hold? Are some things too heavy for a poem to hold? Maybe some things are not supposed to be put in English words at all. Maybe some things do not belong in a poem. Maybe some things are for another time. Do I even have a right to speak in a poem? All those issues started coming up. When I look back, I kind of flinch too. I don't know that I was brave, but I was writing my life in poetry. Yet what's always motivated me in the midst of all this human behavior, coming and going, is that sense of mystery and incredible beauty.
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- I feel, as a writer, especially in the times we're in right now, there's an urgency and a responsibility to speak a truth. To speak to current issues, to be bold and fearless. But I'm learning that I also need to be conscious of the kind of energy I'm creating. How do you balance being fearless, being bold and speaking truth - and being mindful about the kind of energy you're engaging in?
- It's a hard one. The thing with my poetry is, there's a voice. It's a certain voice. It has its own integrity. It will not go where it doesn't want to go. I have tried to "make" it, for example, write something inspired by hip-hop. And my poetry voice looked over at me and said without words, "Go ahead and try." But it did not fit my poetry voice. It has its own sound, is so much older than me, wiser even, and... wiseass.
So as this destruction of democratic principles, disassembling of protections of our environment, and police violence continue in this world and overwhelm, I always remember hearing someone older and wiser in the circle point out that we are in a continuum that has gone on for millennia, and colonization is just a moment. It will destroy itself, and we will go on. That helps my mind. So when I approach political poems, I believe essentially they are all political. My first impulse is to fight, to engage in a struggle. But if I stop and listen, my poetry spirit will say, "OK, we're going to walk around until this wears off, until you start seeing beyond this immediate confrontation." Go read Neruda or Li Po or listen to John Coltrane.
I've been trying to write poems that directly confront our current political situation, which is really not current at all. I have a hard time with those kinds of poems, but the role of the poet is truth teller. So I go to mythology. Trickster figures, such as Rabbit, are useful for speaking of lying, greedy, and braggart leadership that has tilted our country.
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- Yes, it's hard to force oneself to write "about" a thing when the poem may want to be free of that. I think my poems always want that - a freedom, even from me.
- Even with Standing Rock - I have a song about Standing Rock that comes at the beginning of a play - I am rewriting it... And I recently finished one of my best poems, which will be featured in Poetry: "How To Write a Poem in a Time of War." Sometimes I just hear a voice, and that's what started the poem:

You can't begin just anywhere. It's a wreck.

Shrapnel and the eye
Of a house, a row of houses. There's a rat scrambling
From light with fleshy trash in its mouth. A baby strapped to its mother's back
Cut loose. Soldiers crawl the city,

the river, the town, the village,
the bedroom, our kitchen. They eat everything.
Or burn it.

And then it just goes from there... it winds back through American history and threads then with now.
Being in these homelands (in Tennessee) will be another transformative place and time for my creative work. I realized that when Owen [Harjo's husband] and I landed here, we were the grandchildren who came back. It felt really sad that first night we stayed here because I could feel those Mvskoke ancestors whose spirits still live here in the trees. I was just crying, and they were crying because we didn't all die. All this can live in a poem. You do that too, Layli, in Whereas.
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- It's our existence, really.
- Right.
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- Is there anything you've been thinking about recently that you'd like to share with regard to this journey toward poetry that we're all on, together?
- Yes, one thing I'd like to talk about is your generation. What has been a light of this whole journey is to come to this point - I'm still working, and I still feel as though I've got my best work ahead of me - but the one thing you always look for is, who's coming with you. Who's coming up? I remember looking for a long time, and different people would emerge, but what's been very exciting is to watch your generation, such as Jennifer Foerster, dg okpik, and you. There're so many others too; I've watched this emergence of Joan Kane, Santee Frazier, and Sherwin Bitsui. Watching this, I know it's going to continue. There is a continuum, as that person reminded me/us, that goes beyond the present mind.
I think of the generation before me - with Simon Ortiz, who's ten years older than me, and Leslie Silko, who is a few years older than me as well. They were my teachers, coming up. They passed it on. I have poems written by my grandchildren. I've begun thinking in terms of generations. A generation is like a person. Each bears particular themes and predominant colors. There are songs and a music scape of your generation. The rest of us hear it and experience it, but it's in a different way. So a generation, in a sense, is quite an incredible being.
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- That's really a beautiful way of putting it. I love the idea of our generation's having a "music scape" or "predominant colors." It seemed as though, a few years ago, whenever there was a discussion of Native poetics, we were often asked to try to define the differences between my generation and yours. Yet, as I get older, I also recognize so many threads that are the same - or at least, very similar - between generations. It's a continuum, as you said.
Finally, I wonder, what does it mean to you to receive the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize for lifetime achievement in poetry?
- It's a surprise, and it's a deep honor. I write poetry because I'm motivated by beauty, by vision and seeing something beyond my understanding. So to receive recognition for this... well, it's never a given. But I want to thank the spirit of poetry that continues to find me here, to find all of us. It has stood by me when I have had nearly nothing else to sustain me. Poetry continues to stun me with insight through language, wherever and however it appears throughout this Earth. Most poetry isn't written but rather spoken and sung. To win such an esteemed award for my art means that a door has been opened for indigenous poets to be heard, for women poets, and acknowledges that there are many roads to poetry, though some are obscure and will never have names or schools behind them.

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DONNA, VITA, LIBERTA'
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A sostegno della lotta nonviolenta delle donne per la vita, la dignita' e i diritti di tutti gli esseri umani
a cura del "Centro di ricerca per la pace, i diritti umani e la difesa della biosfera" di Viterbo
Supplemento a "La nonviolenza e' in cammino" (anno XXIV)
Direttore responsabile: Peppe Sini. Redazione: strada S. Barbara 9/E, 01100 Viterbo, tel. 0761353532, e-mail: centropacevt at gmail.com
Numero 171 del 20 giugno 2023
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Il "Centro di ricerca per la pace, i diritti umani e la difesa della biosfera" di Viterbo e' una struttura nonviolenta attiva dagli anni '70 del secolo scorso che ha sostenuto, promosso e coordinato varie campagne per il bene comune, locali, nazionali ed internazionali. E' la struttura nonviolenta che oltre trent'anni fa ha coordinato per l'Italia la piu' ampia campagna di solidarieta' con Nelson Mandela, allora detenuto nelle prigioni del regime razzista sudafricano. Nel 1987 ha promosso il primo convegno nazionale di studi dedicato a Primo Levi. Dal 2000 pubblica il notiziario telematico quotidiano "La nonviolenza e' in cammino". Dal 2021 e' particolarmente impegnata nella campagna per la liberazione di Leonard Peltier, l'illustre attivista nativo americano difensore dei diritti umani di tutti gli esseri umani e dell'intero mondo vivente, da 47 anni prigioniero innocente.
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