JOY HARJO

For Calling the Spirit Back from Wandering the Earth in Its Human Feet

Put down that bag of potato chips, that white bread, that bottle of pop.

Turn off that cellphone, computer, and remote control.

Open the door, then close it behind you.

Take a breath offered by friendly winds. They travel the earth gathering essences of plants to clean.

Give it back with gratitude.

If you sing it will give your spirit lift to fly to the stars’ ears and back.

Acknowledge this earth who has cared for you since you were a dream planting itself precisely within your parents’ desire.

Let your moccasin feet take you to the encampment of the guardians who have known you before time, who will be there after time. They sit before the fire that has been there without time.

Let the earth stabilize your postcolonial insecure jitters.

Be respectful of the small insects, birds and animal people who accompany you.

Ask their forgiveness for the harm we humans have brought down upon them.

Don’t worry.

The heart knows the way though there may be high-rises, interstates, checkpoints, armed soldiers, massacres, wars, and those who will despise you because they despise themselves.

The journey might take you a few hours, a day, a year, a few years, a hundred, a thousand or even more.

Watch your mind. Without training it might run away and leave your heart for the immense human feast set by the thieves of time.

Do not hold regrets.

When you find your way to the circle, to the fire kept burning by the keepers of your soul, you will be welcomed.

You must clean yourself with cedar, sage, or other healing plant.

Cut the ties you have to failure and shame.

Let go the pain you are holding in your mind, your shoulders, your heart, all the way to your feet. Let go the pain of your ancestors to make way for those who are heading in our direction.

Ask for forgiveness.

Call upon the help of those who love you. These helpers take many forms: animal, element, bird, angel, saint, stone, or ancestor.

Call your spirit back. It may be caught in corners and creases of shame, judgment, and human abuse.

You must call in a way that your spirit will want to return.

Speak to it as you would to a beloved child.

Welcome your spirit back from its wandering. It may return in pieces, in tatters. Gather them together. They will be happy to be found after being lost for so long.

Your spirit will need to sleep awhile after it is bathed and given clean clothes.

Now you can have a party. Invite everyone you know who loves and supports you. Keep room for those who have no place else to go.

Make a giveaway, and remember, keep the speeches short.

Then, you must do this: help the next person find their way through the dark. 

What is your reaction to the poem?

Reassurance from clear cut instructions that

a) why so?

-diction: 

-tone: authoritative, speaking from experience, a voice of reason that offers lessons to be learnt.  the words used sound more like commands if anything "put down", "turn off" "open the door". they're commands, so it reads like a guide of some sorts, which brings it back to the title.

-imagery: rich in sensory imagery

-sound: consonance,

-form: FREE VERSE

What is your understanding of the poem?

a) What is it about? 

-how much of your understanding is influenced by your position?

Perhaps the World Ends Here 

The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat to live.

Joy Harjo begins Perhaps the World Ends Here by focusing on the ‘kitchen table’. By using a caesura after ‘table’, Harjo emphasises the noun, furthering the importance of the object. Indeed, the ‘kitchen table’ becomes Harjo’s central metaphor, and therefore is placed at a focal moment in this first line.

The very image of a ‘kitchen’ bares connotations of nurturing and food. These ideas follow later in the poem, with Harjo stating that at the most base and literal level, ‘tables’ represent the place where one eats. Indeed, ‘we must eat to live’, and therefore it is the base for all other things.

The blunt nature of the rest of this stanza, caesura splitting the line into two halves, depicts the reality of life. Indeed, ‘no matter what’, it is a fact that ‘we must eat to live’. There is no poetic intent behind these words, just a simple truth that then becomes the core of the rest of the poem. Everything can be avoided, but at some point we must come into contact with food and the ‘kitchen table’, therefore it acts as a fantastic metaphor.

The gifts of earth are brought and prepared, set on the table. So it has been since creation, and it will go on.

We chase chickens or dogs away from it. Babies teethe at the corners. They scrape their knees under it.

The semantics of naturing are extended into the second stanza, with the image of ’gifts of earth’ being used to describe food brought to the kitchen table. The act of eating becomes inherently connected to the land and nature, ‘gifts’ suggesting the importance of nature.

The focus on ‘chickens or dogs’ furthers this sense that nature is present at the kitchen table. Although ‘chase[d]’ away, they continue to have a role in the poem, nature being ever-present in Harjo’s narrative.

It is at this point within Perhaps the World Ends Here that Harjo introduces the image of ‘babies’. Although not seemingly too important, this moment in the poem provides an important contrast to later stanzas, therefore developing an image of a complete human life passing before our eyes.

It is here that children are given instructions on what it means to be human. We make men at it, we make women.

At this table we gossip, recall enemies and the ghosts of lovers.

Our dreams drink coffee with us as they put their arms around our children. They laugh with us at our poor falling-down selves and as we put ourselves back together once again at the table.

Harjo suggests that ‘what it means to be human’ is something on which ‘children are given instruction’. This relates to the passing on of morals, ideas, and views from parent to child. Children are the future, and the morals they are taught to keep close define not only their lives, but the lives of those they interact with. It is across the table, slowly permeating through their childhoods, where they learn what it means to ‘be human’, how it feels to care for others.

Harjo reflects on memories of the past, all these things flowing in to what it means to be human and exist within a community. The poet focuses on the act of ‘recall[ing] enemies and the ghosts of lovers’, recounting the past a way of educating and sharing life experience with others. The metaphor of the ‘kitchen table’ supplies a narrative of warm, family-orientated community, with this extension into stories of the past further showing the durability of the image.

The nostalgia for the past Harjo instigates at this stage in the poem extends to the idea of ‘dreams’. They, too, are happy and supportive, being framed through the naturing image of ‘coffee’ and then personified as having ‘their arms around our children’. The central idea of the poem remains focused on nurturing, happy, positive images of the community. The personification of dreams is no different here, with Harjo adding to the thankful atmosphere of the poem.

This table has been a house in the rain, an umbrella in the sun.

Wars have begun and ended at this table. It is a place to hide in the shadow of terror. A place to celebrate the terrible victory.

We have given birth on this table, and have prepared our parents for burial here.

At this table we sing with joy, with sorrow. We pray of suffering and remorse. We give thanks.

Perhaps the world will end at the kitchen table, while we are laughing and crying, eating of the last sweet bite.

The ‘table’ metaphor, representing life and all things within it, go through stages of ‘rain’ and stages of ‘sun’. The use of these weather conditions acts as pathetic fallacy for the emotions of the people living, reflecting happiness and sadness. Despite the exact emotion, the image of the ‘table’ is always there, strongly offering a representation of support.

The beginning of life, ‘birth on this table’, and the end, ‘our parents for burial’ all stem from the central image of the ‘table’. Birth, childhood, adulthood, and death all compound into one image of the shared experiences that happen around a table.

The focus on the personal pronoun ‘We’ further classifies the sense of community Harjo is depicting, all these people she has come into contact with and known throughout her life being combined through her use of the pronoun.

The title of the poem takes its name from words in the final stanza of Perhaps the World Ends Here. Although the ‘world will end’, Harjo argues that at least humanity will have had moments of connection within their communities, around ‘tables’ that act as representations of these life events. Friends, family, and loved ones all ‘laughing and crying’ as life continues around the ‘kitchen table’, moments that define a life happening at these seemingly unimportant objects. Eventually, the ‘sweet bite’ of life will come to its end – but we can be thankful for all the moments of connection we have had until that moment.

and this is solidified in this poem with the use of nature, spirits, sage, and ancestors. it's kind of like a love letter to her heritage!

 Harjo uses the image of a ‘table’ within Perhaps the World Ends Here as a symbol of all the events a human could encounter. Beginning with the simple fact that one must eat to life, then expanding out through childhood, into adulthood, covering love and loss, even touching upon war, Harjo suggests that everything happens at a table. It encompasses the human spirit beautifully, the communal idea that lies with a ‘Table’ referencing our desire to be among good company. As quickly as life ends, it is over, with perhaps our last moment being at our kitchen table, savouring the ‘last sweet bite’.

Harjo writes Perhaps the World Ends Here across 11 free verse stanzas. Being written in this form, there is no distinct structural patterns, with the line lengths varying throughout. The differing lengths could be a metaphor to represent the different amounts of life a person gets to live, death coming randomly and at any time. The poem, inherently linked to the concept of life, reflects the random nature of humanity, its form mirroring the content.

What is your reaction to the poem?

a) why so?

-diction: 

-tone: 

-imagery: rich in sensory imagery

-sound: consonance,

-form: FREE VERSE

What is your understanding of the poem?

a) What is it about? 

-how much of your understanding is influenced by your position?