Syracuse Symposium features poet, musician Joy Harjo on Nov. 9

Syracuse Symposium features poet, musician Joy Harjo on Nov. 9November 01, 2006Kelly Homan Rodoskikahoman@syr.edu

Internationally acclaimed poet, writer and musician Joy Harjo will visit Syracuse University Nov. 9 as a guest of the 2006 Syracuse Symposium, “Imagination,” presented by The College of Arts and Sciences.

Harjo, a saxophonist and recording artist of the Mvskoke/Creek Nation, will perform and read from her work beginning at 8 p.m. in the Rose and Jules R. Setnor Auditorium in Crouse College. Co-sponsors include U.Encounter, Kaleidoscope, the Office of Multicultural Affairs, the Native American Studies Program and the Center for Indigenous Law, Governance and Citizenship in the College of Law.

The event is free and open to the public; parking is available in the Irving Garage. Syracuse University’s Pulse, which provides SU students and the Central New York community with opportunities to attend and participate in programs and performances, will host a podcast of Harjo’s performance on its website (http://pulse.syr.edu/podcast/) the week of Nov. 9-15. Pulse is a collaborative project of SU’s Division of Student Affairs and College of Visual and Performing Arts (VPA).

The Joseph M. Russo Professor of Creative Writing at the University of New Mexico, Harjo has published seven acclaimed books of poetry, including “She Had Some Horses” (Thunder Mouth Press, 1985), “In Mad Love and War” (Wesleyan University Press, 1990), “The Woman Who Fell From the Sky” (W.W. Norton, 1984) and the most recent “How We Became Human: New and Selected Poems” (W.W. Norton, 2002). Her awards for poetry include the Arrell Gibson Lifetime Achievement Award; Oklahoma Book Awards, 2003; the American Indian Festival of Words Author Award; and the 2000 Western Literature Association Distinguished Achievement Award.

Harjo’s first music CD, “Letter From the End of the 20th Century,” was released in 1997 and honored by the First Americans in the Arts for outstanding musical achievement. She released her most recent CD, “Native Joy for Real,” in 2004. Harjo has performed internationally and has served on the National Council on the Arts.

The symposium is a semester-long intellectual and artistic festival that celebrates interdisciplinary thinking, imagination and creation.

The final speaker in the 2006 Symposium series, theoretical physicist Lisa Randall, will speak on Nov. 29. For more information on symposium events and exhibitions, visit http://symposium.syr.edu.