POEM OF THE DAY: Joy Harjo's "She Had Some Horses"
This week, I wanted to include a poem by Joy Harjo, "She Had Some Horses," from her book of the same name (Thunder's Mouth Press, 1983; W.W. Norton & Company, 2008). I discussed this poem last week with my Bard Early College students in relation to their semester-long exploration of the question, "What is Identity?" Some of them, after we read it aloud in class, thought the speaker was metaphorizing her various and varying lovers. I heard it as a poem about the speaker's many selves.
I have to admit: I have yet to read She Had Some Horses (But I plan to! And you should, too; it's a classic.) and so this poem stood in isolation for us, but we all picked up very clearly on the intimacy communicated in the images and tone. The speaker knows these horses well. And yet, they are separate from her somehow––entities she has possessed ("She had some horses") but who also, at times, seem to possess her (She had horses...who climbed in her / bed at night and prayed as they raped her.). I love how the horses, in the beginning of the poem, are extensions of the landscape ("She had horses who were bodies of sand.") and as the poem continues become more and more human ("She had horses who threw rocks at glass houses."). Harjo breaks down the boundaries between place, body, and spirit, and captures, in this powerful, incantatory poem, the way we are made up of many––often contradicting––identities at once.
If you were taking a course called "What is Identity?" and this poem was part of your reading, what might you raise your hand and say about it in class?
Also, here is a recording of Harjo reading this poem. Worth a listen.
She Had Some Horses
She had some horses.
She had horses who were bodies of sand.
She had horses who were maps drawn of blood.
She had horses who were skins of ocean water.
She had horses who were the blue air of sky.
She had horses who were fur and teeth.
She had horses who were clay and would break.
She had horses who were splintered red cliff.
She had some horses.
She had horses with eyes of trains.
She had horses with full, brown thighs.
She had horses who laughed too much.
She had horses who threw rocks at glass houses.
She had horses who licked razor blades.
She had some horses.
She had horses who danced in their mothers' arms.
She had horses who thought they were the sun and their
bodies shown and burned like stars.
She had horses who waltzed nightly on the moon.
She had horses who were much too shy, and kept quiet
in stalls of their own making.
She had some horses.
She had horses who liked Creak Stomp Dance songs.
She had horses who cried in their beer.
She had horses who spit at male queens who made
them afraid of themselves.
She had horses who said they weren't afraid.
She had horses who lied.
She had horses who told the truth, who were stripped
bare of their tongues.
She had some horses.
She had horses who called themselves, horse.
She had horses who called themselves, spirit, and kept
their voices secret and to themselves.
She had horses who had no names.
She had horses who had books of names.
She had some horses.
She had horses who whispered in the dark, who were afraid
to speak.
She had horses who screamed out of fear of the silence, who
carried knives to protect themselves from ghosts.
She had horses who waited for destruction.
She had horses who waited for resurrection.
She had some horses.
She had horses who got down on their knees for any saviour.
She had horses who thought their high price had saved them.
She had horses who tried to save her, who climbed in her
bed at night and prayed as they raped her.
She had some horses.
She had some horses she loved.
She had some horses she hated.
These were the same horses.
