Joy Harjo on Poetry and Pursuit of the Common Good (from No Small Endeavor)

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4.7 • 626 Ratings

🗓️ 3 November 2025

⏱️ 49 minutes

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Summary

Sharing an episode of the No Small Endeavor podcast. These days, our culture is marked by political unrest, polarization and anxiety. Beauty and art feel like a luxury, or even a distraction. In a special series, No Small Endeavor is asking: What if art, beauty and poetry are exactly what we need to face the crisis at hand? Can poetry help us protest, pray, lament and even hope? Host Lee C. Camp talks to poets like Haleh Liza Gafori, a poet, musician, and acclaimed translator of the Persian poet Rumi; and Pádraig Ó Tuama, poet, theologian, and host of Poetry Unbound. Their conversations evoke thoughtfulness about how to fight for beauty in the current culture, and how to make it through the fires of our time together. In this episode, Lee talks to Joy Harjo, a musician, author, and three-term U.S. Poet Laureate. Camp and Harjo explore how poetry can act as a form of justice, a practice of self-development, and a tiny experiment in healing.

You can listen to No Small Endeavor at https://link.mgln.ai/rethinking

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, rethinking listeners. This week we're excited to share a special episode from the podcast, No Small Endeavor, hosted by Lee C. Camp.
0:07.4	The show explores what it means to live a good life through conversations with remarkable thinkers, artists, and changemakers.
0:13.7	In this episode, Lee sits down with Joy Harjo, the three-term U.S. Poet Laureate and member of the Muskogee Creek Nation.
0:20.5	Joy opens up about poetry's
0:21.8	power as ceremonial language in times of crisis, her journey from Native Rights activism to
0:27.0	becoming one of America's most celebrated poets, and how her work emerged from a need for healing
0:32.0	and justice. It's a moving conversation about resilience, identity, and the role of art in helping
0:37.0	us navigate our
0:37.8	most challenging moments. We hope you find this episode thought-provoking and inspiring, and if you're
0:42.7	curious to hear more, you can find No Small Endeavor wherever you get your podcasts. Enjoy the show.
0:50.2	I'm Lee C. Camp, and this is No Small Ende endeavor, exploring what it means to live a good life.
0:58.6	Poetry, it's ceremonial language that taps on your heart and says, okay, let's pay attention here.
1:07.9	That's three-term U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo on this, the first in our three-part
1:13.4	poetry series. So my work came about out of a need for healing. I mean, justice is part of that.
1:20.7	We discussed the native poets who inspired her the importance of history and place in her writing
1:26.1	and her new book, Girl Warrior.
1:28.8	That's some of the most subtle kindness, perhaps, is to look at somebody and see them.
1:35.8	Say, okay, you have a story, and here we are in this moment.
1:40.4	So I honor you.
1:42.7	All coming right up I'm Lee C Camp this is no small endeavor exploring what it means to live a good life
1:57.0	years ago I found myself particularly grieved by yet another new war and what I understood
2:06.6	to be the fear and falsehoods that were fueling that so-called preemptive war.
	...

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