Newsletter sign up

Be the first to know when new American Life in Poetry columns are live.
American Life in Poetry Logo
Search
Column 886

Memory Sack

03.14.2022

It is remark­able how our U.S. Poet Lau­re­ate, Joy Har­jo, in so few words, sum­ma­rizes some­thing of the cycle of our mor­tal­i­ty with such clar­i­ty and grace. With our first cry after birth, she says, we enter ​“ances­tor road” — a place of cre­ation and destruc­tion — life, in oth­er words — but what we car­ry loose­ly through this life are our mem­o­ries. Most com­fort­ing for me is the last line that affirms our pur­pose in life, ​“to make more”.

Download

Memory Sack

By Joy Harjo
That first cry opens the earth door.
We join the ancestor road.
With our pack of memories
Slung slack on our backs
We venture into the circle
Of destruction,
Which is the circle
Of creation
And make more-

Share this column

Disclaimer

We do not accept unsolicited submissions

We do not accept unsolicited submissions. American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2019 by Joy Harjo, “MEMORY SACK” from An American Sunrise (W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2019.) Poem reprinted by permission of the author and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2024 by The Poetry Foundation.

Column 887

Visitors

Column 885

Mother of Letters

Recent columns

/