The poetry of Joy Harjo has consistently evolved toward an increasingly diverse and complex vision of contemporary America. In her poems the land speaks through the voices of people who are intimately connected to it. Seeking a state of balance, Harjo attempts to resolve such polarities as love/hate and male/female.

Joy Foster was born on 9 May 1951 in Tulsa, Oklahoma, to Allen W. and Wynema Baker Foster; she is of French, Irish, and Cherokee descent on her mother's side and Muskogee (Creek) on her father's. His family included a long line of tribal leaders and orators, including Monahwee, who led the Red Stick War against Andrew Jackson's army. In 1970, with the permission of her family, Joy Foster took the surname of her paternal grandmother, Naomi Harjo. An enrolled member of the Muskogee tribe, Harjo credits her great-aunt, Lois Harjo Ball, who died in 1982 and to whom Harjo...