Institute highlights some of the best in the West

The list of regional writers making up the Southwest Writers’ Institute features some of the best in the West. Of particular note are the three keynote authors – all of them recipients of multiple awards and international exposure.

Joy Harjo

Joy Harjo is a member of the Mvskoke/Creek Nation, a heritage she often draws upon in her prose and poetry. The author of seven acclaimed books of poetry, Harjo is also a saxophone player. She and her band, Poetic Justice, have released two CDs, the most recent of which is “Native Joy for Real.”

Harjo is recognized as a substantial contributor of words that speak for the Native American population. She depicts the ongoing war between creation and destruction in her words. She also writes to account for the difficult lives of Native Americans. Growing up in Oklahoma, Harjo says she noticed a glaring absence of Native American writers in American Poetry. At the time, Native American writers were often not recognized as capable of poetic traditions. But as politics and economics changed, Harjo inched her way to the forefront of poetry’s collective conscience, standing up for her people, her emotions and her soul. Harjo says that her poetry can be whole only if there is soul in it. “Poetry writing is a craft. But craft without soul is like an empty house.”

“How We Became Human: An Evening with Joy Harjo” is Fri., Sept. 16, at 7 p.m., Fort Lewis College Community Concert Hall.

Denise Chavez

Native New Mexican Denise Chavez ushered into the literary landscape a distinct Latina voice. Drawing from her ancestral voices, she writes, she told the Los Angeles Times, from her heart and strength – the landscape, mountains, friendship and Latino culture. As she wrote more and more, Chavez realized that her stories are universal, because everyone has a character Chavez writes about in their own families.

One of Chavez’s most popular novels is Loving Pedro Infante. It is a coming-of-age story rooted in liberating Latinas, freeing them to express their passions, flaws and desires. It is in this book that readers realize how successfully Chavez weaves romanticism in contemporary fiction. Her characters are often strong-willed women, yearning to complete their hopes and expectations while struggling against a macho culture. The stories are so familiar and provide so much relief in knowing we all battle the same concerns, Chavez’s size of audience grows exponentially each time she writes. Chavez has repeatedly talked about being greatly influenced by New Mexican writer Rudolfo Anaya. From him, Chavez says she took flight to open “the door to the value of my own culture, language, background.”

For her language, she incorporates its everyday familiarity in tales that even non-Spanish-speaking people can embrace. For her culture, she breaks through the silent barrier of gender roles, letting her words empower Latinas to address issues like incest, alcohol abuse, sexuality and religion. For her landscape, she embraces her roots (Chavez writes in the same room in which she was born in her Las Cruces home).

“Women’s Lives, Women’s Stories: An Evening with Denise Chavez” is Sat., Sept. 17, 7: 30 p.m. Abbey Theatre.

Leonard “Red” Bird

Leonard Bird is both downwinder and survivor. In his latest book of poetry, Folding Paper Cranes: An Atomic Memoir, Bird recounts his experience of being a young Marine who was exposed to the fallout of nuclear weapons tested in the Nevada desert. “Downwinders” are a well-known bunch of victims saddled with disease brought on by the 100 detonations done at a government test site. Military troops participated in these tests, being exposed to high doses of radiation. Bird was among the deadly tests. He learned how deadly they were 45 years to the day of his initial exposure, which is when doctors diagnosed him with multiple myeloma, a rare bone-blood cancer.

Bird, emeritus professor of English at Fort Lewis College, is a master of prose and poetry. He is hailed as a trooper in words and character, deftly mixing raw emotions and verse to reach readers on personal levels. His words create indelible images of an unresponsive government that callously dismissed American citizens as expendable. He writes of despair – his own and other victims’ – and devastation. But he does it at peace and without bitterness.

As he told the Telegraph in an interview earlier this year, he didn’t want his book to be about himself only, but rather a dedication to “the underlying, essential and problematic premise that we can learn and build a more enlightened world.”

“Folding Paper Cranes: An Atomic Memoir” with Leonard Bird, is Sun., Sept. 18, at 1 p.m. Fort Lewis College Concert Hall.

For more information on the Southwest Writers Institute log onto: www.southwestwritersinstitute.org.