Hey, it's NPR's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbaugh. The poet Ada Limon just got named

the U.S. Poet Laureate. It's one of those jobs that it is whatever you make it to be, you know,

encouraging the appreciation and creation of poetry in this country is a pretty broad goal

and different people approach it in

different ways. The previous poet laureate, Joy Harjo, had been in the position since 2019.

And last year, she talked to NPR's Michelle Martin about her poetic memoir, Poet Warrior.

And she talked about how she didn't see herself becoming a poet growing up.

Being a native person, she thought, okay, my community needs health care and doctors,

so that's what I'm going to do.

Until she saw other native poets and realized that poetry fulfills a need, too.

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Before Joy Harjo became a renowned poet, artist, an editor, she was a quiet child who was more likely to take in the world from the sidelines than become the center of attention.

But in a powerful, and yes, poetic new memoir, the U.S.

Poet laureate charged the journey to finding her voice and finally learning how to use it, and she

shares the lesson she's learned along the way. It's called Poet Warrior, and Joy Harjo is with us

now to tell us more about it. Welcome back to this program. Thank you so much for joining us.

Well, thank you so much for inviting me. We last spoke with you about the gorgeous anthology

of Native poetry that you co-edited, and that's just one of your many published works. I mean,

you have authored, what, nine poetry collections, and you've even published a previous memoir called

...