Written by Joy Harjo and published in her collection A Map to the Next World: Poems (2000).

Joy Harjo reads A Map to the Next World.

Joy Harjo, born May 9, 1951, identifies as a performer and writer of the Muscogee (Mvskoke) Nation located in Oklahoma. Harjo is the author of ten books of poetry and is known as the first Native American to serve as the United States Poet Laureate. Harjo's writing often challenges Western culture in its observation and promotion of native spirituality. Her poetry is additionally described as inhabiting landscapes from the Southwest to the Southeast of the United States and is centered “around the need for remembrance and transcendence.” ¹⁾

As a critically-acclaimed poet and internationally renowned performer, Harjo holds many honors, including the National Book Critics Circle Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award, the Ruth Lily Prize for Lifetime Achievement from the Poetry Foundation, the Wallace Stevens Award from the Academy of American Circles, and the American Indian Distinguished Achievement in the Arts Award. “Her music has been awarded a Native American Music Award (NAMMY) for Best Female Artist of the Year 2009” (400).²⁾ She has also received numerous fellowship from institutions such as the National Endowment for the Arts and the Rasmuson Foundation.

For more information on Joy Harjo, visit her website at JoyHarjo.com

Harjo’s poem “A Map of the Next World” begins with the end of the fourth world, or what we might perceive as modern society. The poem references a new map made of “sand” that “must carry fire,” in order to “renew” and restore what has been lost of indigenous culture (lines 6-7). ³⁾ The poem frequently refers to the current state of society in negative terms, citing issues of pollution, drugs, and technology and how these conditions have exploited and harmed native people and their cultural memories. The poem attempts to resolve these issues by calling back to a previous state of existence, one in which the reader “will have to navigate by your mother’s voice, renew the song she is singing” (36) ⁴⁾. In this lineal renewal, cultural memories that have been forgotten, and therefore the culture itself, can be restored by native people through remembrance and connection. The poem ends with a message of restoration and responsibility as Harjo writes, “Crucial to finding the way is this: there is no beginning or end. / You must make your own map.” (52-3). ⁵⁾

Fourth World - The term “Fourth World” is found in some indigenous creation stories. The Navajo people refer to four worlds that came into existence throughout creation. From the first world to the fourth, the Navajo’s mythological ancestors traveled through these various realms until they reached a state of mature existence. ⁶⁾ This final world was the fourth world and is what we know as Earth. In some variations, it is the fifth world which is referred to as the current state of existence. The term has also been used to describe “When Native peoples come into their own, on the basis of their own cultures and traditions, that will be the Fourth World.” ⁷⁾ Beyond this, it has now become “synonymous with stateless, poor, and marginal nations.” ⁸⁾

Killing Fields - A term referring to war and its subsequent battlefields/bloodshed.

Desiray Kierra Chmusee - According to the article “Writing Deeper Maps: Mapmaking, Local Indigenous Knowledges, and Literary Nationalism in Native Women's Writing,” written by Kelli Lyon Johnson, Desiray Kierra Chee is identified as “her [Joy Harjo's]* granddaughter” (112). ⁹⁾

*Please note that in Rothenberg and Taboada's anthology, Harjo's granddaughter's last name is spelled differently. This appears to be an error on the editors' part.

Joy Harjo's Poet Laureate project: Living Nations, Living Worlds: A Map of the First Peoples Poetry

Native Land Digital: Mapping Indigenous Lands

Muscogee (Creek) Nation National Library and Archives: Archives, Library, and Oral History