An American Sunrise by Joy Harjo, W.W. Norton & Company, 116 pages, $25.95

An American Sunrise by Joy Harjo and other poetry collections

If you read only one book of poems this summer, make it An American Sunrise by Joy Harjo, the first Native American to be named U.S. poet laureate. In these stunning pages, Harjo, a member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, recalls her ancestors’ forced relocation from Alabama to Oklahoma following the Indian Removal Act of 1830.

She also visits those lost lands, trying, like the ghosts of her forebears, to find the way back home. Every step of the journey is deeply moving. Harjo doesn’t just honor the people, creatures, and landscapes that were lost, she embodies and embraces them, as in these lines from “Exile of Memory”: “We could not see our ancestors as we climbed up/To the edge of destruction/But from the dark we felt their soft presences at the edge of our mind/And we heard them singing.”

Harjo also hears their grief, anger, and wisdom: “I was taught to give honor to the house of the warriors/Which cannot exist without the house of the peacemakers.” She helps readers see the web of connections between Native people, the natural world, and the spiritual realm. As the gorgeous poem “Directions to You,” explains, “Take a deep breath,/ Pray./You will not always be lost./You are right here,/ In your time,/In your place.”

Rich and deeply engaging, An American

Sunrise creates bridges of understanding while reminding readers to face and remember the past: “Let’s honor the maker,” Harjo writes. “Let’s honor what’s made.”