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Welcome to my blog!!!

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Joy Harjo



The poem, “The Woman Hanging from the Thirteenth Floor Window”, written by Joy Harjo, is about a single mother who is contemplating suicide. Throughout the poem the character thinks of all of the reasons to live and the things that depresses her.
The character is insecure with her race, poverty and she wants to give up on life, “she knows she is hanging by her own fingers, her/ own skin, her own thread of indecision”(Line 47-47). Harjo explains the woman's reasoning for wanting to die, “She thinks she will be set free”(Line 7). Suicide could seam like an easier way to deal with depression.
Depression can have a nasty effect on people; its painful. Harjo points out that very few people have an educated understanding of depression, “Some of them scream out from below /for her to jump, they would push her over. Others cry softly /from the sidewalks, pull their children up like flowers and gather /them into their arms. They would help her, like themselves”(Line 70-74). I am personally bias against depressed people. I think that anyone can walk in the beauty of their own life. Everyone is beautiful. Yet, I have never been depressed. I do not know the disease.
The beautiful part of this poems is that it gives inspiration. Harjo explains that the waman is not alone,“She sees other​/ women hanging from many-floored windows /counting their lives in the palms of their hands”(Line 24-26). This could be the answer that helps with depression. If a depressed person could realize that there are other people that know their sorrow; they may not feel so alone.
Harjo not only writes beautiful poems, but she is also talented in music. Harjo writes most of her poems about her culture, woman, and poverty,“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”. Harjo is incredibly inspiring and I feel blessed to have found her.

Works Cited

Harjo, Joy. “The Woman Hanging from the Thirteenth Floor Window”. Poetry Foundation. 2006. 16 June 2010. http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=180960

np. “Joy Harjo (1951-). Poetry Foundation. 2020. 16 June 2010. http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poet.html?id=2929
Here is Joy Harjo's website.
http://joyharjo.com/Home.html

Here is a video of Joy Harjo doing a live reading of her poem, "A Poem to Get Rid of Fear".

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