Joy Harjo’s nine books of poetry include “An American Sunrise,” “Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings,” “How We Became Human: New and Selected Poems,” and “She Had Some Horses.” Her memoir “Crazy Brave” won several awards, including the PEN USA Literary Award for Creative Nonfiction and the American Book Award. Ms. Harjo is the recipient of the Ruth Lilly Prize from the Poetry Foundation for Lifetime Achievement, the 2015 Wallace Stevens Award from the Academy of American Poets for proven mastery in the art of poetry, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America, and the United States Artist Fellowship. In 2019, Ms. Harjo was appointed the 23rd United States Poet Laureate, the first Native American to hold the position.
Celebrating Toni Morrison
Event Overview
To kick off this celebration, authors Ta-Nehisi Coates, Tayari Jones, Edwidge Danticat, and Joy Harjo, U.S. Poet Laureate, will take part in a daylong virtual reading of “The Bluest Eye.” More than 50 readers, including Cornell faculty and scholars from around the country, will participate in this special event, which will also highlight Morrison’s global influence by having portions of the book read in French, Spanish, Portuguese, and German.
For a complete list of readers and times please contact: kah53@cornell.edu
What You'll Learn
- An overview of Toni Morrison’s enduring connection with Cornell
- The story of how Morrison’s first novel came to be
- How Morrison has inspired generations of readers and writers
- How Morrison’s words, written a half-century ago, continue to offer insight and illumination to our world today
Speakers
Ta-Nehisi Coates is a distinguished writer-in-residence at NYU’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. He is the author of the bestselling books “The Beautiful Struggle,” “We Were Eight Years in Power,” “The Water Dancer,” and “Between the World and Me,” which won the National Book Award in 2015. The recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, Mr. Coates is also the current author of the Marvel comics “Black Panther” and “Captain America.”
New York Times best-selling author Tayari Jones is the author of four novels, most recently ”An American Marriage.” The novel was awarded the Women’s Prize for Fiction (formerly known as the Orange Prize), Aspen Words Prize, and an NAACP Image Award. It has been published in two dozen countries. A member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers, Ms. Jones has also been a recipient of the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, a United States Artist Fellowship, an NEA Fellowship, and a Radcliffe Institute Bunting Fellowship. Her third novel, “Silver Sparrow,” was added to the NEA Big Read Library of classics in 2016.
Joy Harjo’s nine books of poetry include “An American Sunrise,” “Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings,” “How We Became Human: New and Selected Poems,” and “She Had Some Horses.” Her memoir “Crazy Brave” won several awards, including the PEN USA Literary Award for Creative Nonfiction and the American Book Award. Ms. Harjo is the recipient of the Ruth Lilly Prize from the Poetry Foundation for Lifetime Achievement, the 2015 Wallace Stevens Award from the Academy of American Poets for proven mastery in the art of poetry, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America, and the United States Artist Fellowship. In 2019, Ms. Harjo was appointed the 23rd United States Poet Laureate, the first Native American to hold the position.
Ta-Nehisi Coates is a distinguished writer-in-residence at NYU’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. He is the author of the bestselling books “The Beautiful Struggle,” “We Were Eight Years in Power,” “The Water Dancer,” and “Between the World and Me,” which won the National Book Award in 2015. The recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, Mr. Coates is also the current author of the Marvel comics “Black Panther” and “Captain America.”
New York Times best-selling author Tayari Jones is the author of four novels, most recently ”An American Marriage.” The novel was awarded the Women’s Prize for Fiction (formerly known as the Orange Prize), Aspen Words Prize, and an NAACP Image Award. It has been published in two dozen countries. A member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers, Ms. Jones has also been a recipient of the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, a United States Artist Fellowship, an NEA Fellowship, and a Radcliffe Institute Bunting Fellowship. Her third novel, “Silver Sparrow,” was added to the NEA Big Read Library of classics in 2016.
View Keynote by completing the form below.
You're Registered!