tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29769707.post7179653562596202221..comments2024-02-10T18:19:36.406-08:00Comments on Newspaper Rock: Critics slam Harjo's tripRobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01478763837213733775noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29769707.post-23229244911870645282012-12-24T18:06:53.078-08:002012-12-24T18:06:53.078-08:00For more on the subject, see:
http://www.jpost.co...For more on the subject, see:<br /><br />http://www.jpost.com/ArtsAndCulture/Arts/Article.aspx?id=296481<br /><br /><b>Crazy Brave<br /><br />American Indian poet Joy Harjo didn’t realize that her visit to Israel last week would be politicized.</b><br /><br />She sees similarities between the Palestinian story and her own people’s story, including some settlers’ belief that God gave them this land, that it is their right to live there, and the native people are primitive and don’t know how to use it.<br /><br />“The language of conquest is very similar,” she says.<br /><br />The use of gun power, she says, also resembles the American story.<br /><br />“You have guns at your face. What use are words? What do you say? You’re a people and you’re faced with guns or have guns at your back while the people are walking you out of your lands, which is what happened to my people, to my particular tribe.”<br /><br />But Harjo, who doesn’t like to be backed into a corner, kept her obligation to Tel Aviv, and requested to add in the last couple days of her trip a visit with Palestinian students and artists living in east Jerusalem and the West Bank.<br /><br />“I don’t believe in the political hard-lining [of] the arts. It goes against the nature of art for me,” she says. “I don’t want to be legislated. I don’t want that voice [the spirit of poetry and music] to be legislated by either side. I don’t think that’s in the spirit of the arts at all or cultures or of ideas.”Robhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01478763837213733775noreply@blogger.com