Dear Friend,
What is a memoir? How–or why–does it work? Maybe it starts with a good title.
Crazy Brave is more than a double-entendre. It seems to work in every imaginable combination. Harjo’s life was certainly filled with “crazy” people and events, those that are both unwelcome and unexpected. It was also “crazy” wild in the way that life can be unpredictable, diverse, and awesome. And maybe people in her life even thought she was a little “crazy” for the choices she made to survive, the art she chose to pursue, the life of accomplishment she managed to build.
Brave? That too. There’s the “Brave” of her heritage, the Native American warrior tasked with protecting the tribe, resisting colonizers, and hunting for food to sustain their people. As she recounts her own life and those of her ancestors, we see this spirit lives in her. This corresponds directly with the more generic “brave” that we use to define a certain characteristic. To be bold and courageous in the face of adversity. To overcome fear. To do what is right, not what is easy. Harjo’s life reflects the specific and the general.
A successful memoir covers a lot of ground, then. It’s the story of a life told in the voice of that person, sure, but it also reflects the interests, talents, and style of that person through the expression and presentation of the material itself. Harjo’s memoir incorporates myth and memory, poetry and creative nonfiction. Its very design reflects and honors her heritage, in its division into the four cardinal directions. Her story embodies “the tails of two snakes making a spiral, looping over and over, an eternal transformation” which is the metaphor of its final chapter (133).
Joy Harjo’s greatest success might be how she presents a different kind of bravery, or an alternative warrior, if you will. She endures a difficult childhood followed by a lonely and still difficult young adulthood, but through it all, she develops strategies that become her talents. She leans into art and acting, which bring her both peace and entertainment. These interests return her to her early love for poetry, which she develops with some vigor after becoming a mother, and it’s here that she finds herself.
But this book is not just here’s the life of a poet, which would be an interesting enough tale. It’s, here’s why poetry is brave. It’s here’s why art is strength. It’s here’s why love is courageous. It is a message entirely Joy Harjo, and yet so much larger than her, too.
As Harjo puts it herself, “it was the spirit of poetry who reached out and found me as I stood there at the doorway between panic and love. There are many such doorways in our lives . . . when we walk through them to the other side, everything changes” (163).
I hope you enjoyed reading Harjo’s first memoir, Crazy Brave, as much as I did. On June 1st, I’ll be back to introduce our next read, The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran. Won’t you walk through the doorway with me?
Meditation
“For the true warriors of the world, fighting is the last resort to solving a conflict. Every effort is made to avoid bloodshed.” -Joy Harjo
May you be brave,
~Adam
Contemplative Reading Project 
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