Joy Harjo "I Am Not Ready to Die Yet"

Joy Harjo's "I Am Not Ready to Die Yet" was an extremely moving poem. Joy Harjo is an exceptionally talented artist who has lived a life defined by struggle, perseverance, and strength. Her struggles with depression and suicide, I feel, are reflected in many of her poems which was why I found this one so powerful. One of Harjo's new poems, I felt that it was a gateway, or a new perspective on life that can only be achieved through the window we open into poetry. The end of the first stanza stood out the most to me:

"My ashes will return there,
But I am not ready to die yet
Nor am I ready to leave the room
In which we made love last night."

These four lines say so much about life, death, and Harjo's views of these facts of life. There is a major idea of acceptance here that can be seen in the first line, "My ashes will return there." Harjo is accepting of death and the idea that we all return to the earth in the end. There is a symbiotic relationship represented that is undeniably beautiful and comforting. In the lines preceding these four, Harjo is personifying the water as a god that has commanded her presence in the past, just like the fishes that live there as she looks out over the great expanse. However, she is asserting in the next lines that while she bears a deep understanding of this spiritual relationship with the next phase of existence, she has also come to accept the hardships and joys of this life.

"But I am not ready to die yet" is far more powerful than it may seem at first glance. Knowing some of Harjo's background makes this line more intense, but the word choices themselves also add something to its impact. Understanding that Harjo struggled with suicidal tendencies as a younger person brings this line into perspective. By asserting that she isn't "ready to die yet" tells the audience that she has accepted her life and has made the choice to see it through. Also, by starting the line with "but" makes an immediate turn of perspective. The line before asserts an acceptance of death and as soon as the word "but" is seen, it jars the reader into a new line of thinking, thinking about life instead of death. It creates a mental switch that can occur when someone makes the conscious choice to live rather than die and by adding "but" to the beginning of the line, it causes the reader to experience the same sort of mental event.

I also love how Harjo places the spirituality of death in the same sentence/lines as making love. This adds a spiritual element to making love and reveals the emphasis that love and the physical act of love can have on a person's experience of life and their outlook on that life. Love is often a positive experience and her refusal to leave the room or to willingly die at that moment reveals that the speaker has found a deep, living connection with life. Again, there is a drawing in of the reader into the speaker's profound and intimate mental experiences. A very powerful element and an excellent poetic move.

Harjo's poetry is beautiful and moving. The poems are very personal but there are elements that allow the reader to peek into the speaker's intimate thoughts and mental processes. It associates the audience with a certain identity and makes the whole poem and experience for the reader, just as it was for the speaker. A very profound writer and a very talented woman, Joy Harjo certainly engages her readers and keeps us yearning for more.