Joy Harjo: Give it Back with Gratitude

Abstract

Recalling the past, a thinking about who we have been, whom we have believed in, how we have lived, is oneof the pillars for the constitution of identity. The American poet Joy Harjo’s focuses on memory andtranscendence. The poem “For calling the spirit back from wandering the earth in its human feet”, invites thereader to put all things down for a moment, in Harjo’s words, “turn off that cellphone, computer, and remotecontrol” and call the spirit back. We will analyze the themes on personal identity and collective identity in herpoem from the perspective of Argentine philosopher Julio De Zan and French philosopher Paul Ricoeur. DeZan claims in his work “Memory and identity” (2008) that keeping the memory helps us create our identity, asense of responsibility for our own reality, while bringing a sense of respect for the others. We will take fromRicoeur in Memory, History, Forgetting (2003) the concept of “happy memory”, that memory in where the pasthas ceased to haunt us, a now-healed memory that can bring us again, through acknowledgement that whathas been absent, that what has been missing. The analysis reveals that, in the construction of identity, drawnfrom that fragile treasure which is our memory, we can once again experience all that we are all that dwells inus and all the voices kept within.