In Mad Love and War by Joy Harjo
"In Mad Love and War" by Joy Harjo is a poignant collection of poetry that captures the complexities of being a Native American woman in contemporary America. The work is divided into two distinct sections: "The Wars" and "Mad Love." The first section confronts themes of oppression, survival, and societal challenges, including poverty and violence, through vivid imagery and stark realities. Harjo's poem "Deer Dancer" exemplifies this, weaving traditional myth into the backdrop of modern struggles.
In contrast, the "Mad Love" section offers a more personal and lyrical exploration of life, focusing on themes of joy, motherhood, and love. The poems shift in style, with some presented as prose, reflecting a softer, more intimate tone. Throughout the collection, Harjo navigates the journey from despair to the beauty of connection and hope, culminating in the final poem "The Eagle," which emphasizes care and kindness in all things. Overall, "In Mad Love and War" presents a rich tapestry of experiences that resonate with deep emotional and cultural significance, inviting readers to reflect on the interplay of love and adversity.
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Subject Terms
In Mad Love and War by Joy Harjo
First published: 1990
The Work
In Mad Love and War comprises two sections of poems expressing the conflicts and joys of Joy Harjo’s experiences as a Native American woman living in contemporary American culture. The poems draw on a wealth of experiences, including those relating to tribal tradition and sacredness of the land. Such positive experiences are compared to the sometimes grim realities inherent in the modern society in which Harjo lives.
The first section, titled “The Wars,” offers poetry that imagistically develops themes relating to oppression and to survival in the face of daunting problems of poverty, alcoholism, and deferred dreams. In her notable poem “Deer Dancer,” Harjo retells a traditional myth in the contemporary setting of “a bar of broken survivors, the club of shotgun, knife wound, of poison by culture.” Through the dance, the deer dancer becomes “the myth slipped down through dreamtime. The promise of feast we all knew was coming.” Like many of Harjo’s poems, “The Deer Dancer” ends with beauty being experienced amid lost hope and despair.
Many of the other poems in “The Wars” are political in nature, containing stark images of violence and deprivation, most notably her poem dedicated to Anna Mae Pictou Aquash, a member of the American Indian Movement whose murdered body was found on the Pine Ridge Reservation, and the poems “We Must Call a Meeting,” “Autobiography,” “The Real Revolution Is Love,” and “Resurrection.”
The poems of the second section, “Mad Love,” are more personal in their treatment of subject, more lyrical in their voice, and quieter in their tone. In a poem titled with the name of Harjo’s daughter, “Rainy Dawn,” Harjo concludes by expressing the joy of Rainy Dawn’s birth.
And when you were born I held you wet and unfolding, like a butterfly newly born from the chrysalis of my body. And breathed with you as you breathed your first breath. Then was your promise to take it on like the rest of us, the immense journey, for love, for rain.
In Mad Love and War encompasses a variety of styles, from narrative poems written in expansive lines to tightly chiseled lyrics. Many of the poems in the “Mad Love” section are prose poems, whose unlined stanzas create a notable incongruity with respect to the increasingly personal, softer mood of the pieces. The book offers a journey from the ruins of dislocation to the joys of membership and love. In the final masterful poem of the collection, “The Eagle,” Harjo writes, “That we must take the utmost care/ And kindness in all things. . . . We pray that it will be done/ In beauty/ In beauty.”
Bibliography
Leen, Mary. “An Art of Saying.” American Indian Quarterly 19, no. 1 (Winter, 1995): 1-16.
Smith, Stephanie. “Joy Harjo.” Poets and Writers 21, no. 4 (July/August, 1993): 23-27.