Poet Joy Harjo reflects on the importance of maintaining her ancestors' connection to the sun, in "Talking with the Sun,"* her contribution to NPR’s This I Believe series. This I Believe is a National Public Radio program that features Americans, from the famous to the unknown, completing the thought that begins with the series title. The pieces that make up the program compel listeners to re-think not only what and how they have arrived at their own personal beliefs, but also the extent to which they share them with others. Featuring a star-studded list of contributors that includes John McCain, Isabel Allende, and Colin Powell, as well as pieces from the original 1950's series including Helen Keller and Jackie Robinson, the This I Believe collection also contains essays by a Brooklyn lawyer, a woman who sells yellow pages advertising in Fort Worth, and a man who serves on the state of Rhode Island's parole board. The result is a stirring, funny and always provocative trip inside the minds and hearts of a diverse group of Americans whose beliefs, and the incredibly varied ways in which they choose to express them, reveal the American spirit at its best. This short audio essay is an excerpt from the audiobook edition of the This I Believe anthology. *This essay also aired as "A Sacred Connection to the Sun"
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Joy Harjo is an internationally renowned performer and writer of the Muscogee Creek Nation and who was named United States Poet Laureate in 2019. In 2020, she was named US Poet Laureate for a second term. She is the author of eight books of poetry and a memoir, Crazy Brave. Her many honors include the Jackson Poetry Prize, the Ruth Lilly Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Josephine Miles Poetry Award, the William Carlos Williams Award, an Oklahoma Tulsa Artist Fellow, and the American Indian Distinguished Achievement in the Arts Award.