An American Sunrise

Is it an unforgivable gap in my education that I did not realize there were many Trails of Tears? When I recently read Joy Harjo’s thought-provoking poetry book—An American Sunrise (published in 2019 by W.W. Norton & Co., Inc.)—I quickly learned that North American indigenous peoples all around our country were forcibly removed from their homes after then-President Andrew Jackson signed into law the Indian Removal Act in 1830. As a nation, we can never truly escape the chains of this truly horrific time in our history, and that fact is exacerbated by the erasing of information in classrooms (at least in my experience).

Joy Harjo was named the U.S. Poet Laureate in 2019 and again in 2020. She is a poet, writer, musician, and member of the Muscogee Creek Nation, and this most recent book is filled with poems, stories, songs, and information. The book is physically beautiful, but it also is well worth hearing as an audio book read (and, in part, sung) by Joy Harjo. She dedicates it “For the children, so they may find their way through the dark—They are all our children.”

Her poem “Bless This Land” (“Bless us, these lands, said the rememberer. These lands aren’t our/lands. These lands aren’t your lands. We are this land.”) separates out people and their action and reminds us all that the land is us.