The Woman Who Fell from The Sky: Poems
Along withN. Scott  Momaday,John  Trudell, and  very few others, Joy Harjo is an essential Native American literary  voice.  She counts among her devoted readersMarge Piercy,Adrienne Rich, andSandra Cisneros; her  writing is infused with a generosity of spirit that accounts for much of her appeal.  Dancing children, the attempt to heal a broken life,  rising moons, and blue horses turning  into streaks of lightning are the images Harjo uses to spin her yarns, and her words are  spellbinding. Her talent is manifest in "A Postcolonial Tale": "Every  day is a reenactment of the creation story. We emerge from dense unspeakable material,  through the shimmering power of dreaming stuff."  And in "Wolf  Warrior": "A white butterfly speckled with pollen joined me in my prayers  yesterday as I thought of you in Washington." There is a lot of magic and a lot of  hope woven through the dark backdrop of the poems inThe Woman Who Fell from  the Sky. Harjo is a treasure.