She Had Some Horses

January 31st, 2007 by kim shuck · No Comments

Album cover

Joy Harjo’s recent CD, �She Had Some Horses,� provides witness to the contemporary arcs of Native story. It is a spoken version of a book first published in 1984 with a few extra musical tracks from her recent CD, �Native Joy for Real.� Through her voice, singing or talking poem stories, I felt affirmed as a Native woman in a new century, not just mythic in a forced way, not just participating in some sorry plight that needs to be escaped, but seen in all the parts of light that we are. This CD is a dance of spoken poem and periodic song.

The title poem from this collection has become such an anthem for more than one generation of Native people that it has sadly come to symbolize Harjo’s work. Sadly, not because it represents her in a bad light, but because she has done so many other things that any perceived limitations put on her writing are sad to see. I am intensely grateful for this new way of experiencing poetry that I love so well, and find it brave of her to readdress material that is already so well covered. Harjo’s voice as singer and poet throbs, draws and paints us through the collection. Although I am frequently critical of poetry CDs as being a bit uneven, there is not a thing about this one that I would change. The poems string together with bare ripples between them, enforcing the point of a collection rather than a poem-by-poem experience. As well as I know the book, I found myself flowing between the poems in this form without noticing the transitions.

I know that reviewers are not supposed to insert ourselves too strongly into the work we are reviewing. I know that. The problem is that Joy Harjo has often been the one breaking trail for contemporary Native Women in the arts and being someone who follows her direction marks, I have no distance. Listening to this CD, I don’t want any. Her word gestures are sure and graceful, “By then you were strong horses�”

If you are unaware of �She Had Some Horses,� buy the CD and be introduced to “The Woman Hanging from the Thirteenth Floor Window” and Ava Benson and “Those Who Have Learned to Speak”. Let Harjo take you on a visit to Jemez, New Orleans, Anchorage and her experience of the road. If you already know the book, listening to the CD is akin to seeing a beloved place in a different season: illuminating, profound and comforting. I’m going to go play it again now�”She had some horses she loved, She had some horses she hated, These were the same horses�”