U.S. poet laureate Joy Harjo reads “Perhaps the World Ends Here”
U.S. poet laureate Joy Harjo reads “Perhaps the World Ends Here”
Harjo calls this her “kitchen table poem.”
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
Transcript
The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat to live.
The gifts of earth are brought and prepared, set on the table. So it has been since creation, and it will go on.
We chase chickens or dogs away from it. Babies teethe at the corners. They scrape their knees under it.
It is here that children are given instructions on what it means to be human. We make men at it, we make women.
At this table we gossip, recall enemies and the ghosts of lovers.
Our dreams drink coffee with us as they put their arms around our children. They laugh with us at our poor falling-down selves and as we put ourselves back together once again at the kitchen table.
This table has been a house in the rain, an umbrella in the sun.
Wars have begun and ended at this table. It is a place to hide in the shadow of terror. A place to celebrate the terrible victory.
We have given birth on this table, and have prepared our parents for burial here.
At this table we sing with joy, with sorrow. We pray of suffering and remorse. We give thanks.
Perhaps the world will end at the kitchen table, while we are laughing and crying, eating of the last sweet bite.
I call it the kitchen table poem. I don't know how I came to write it, and I don't know what was going on. Some poems come directly out of an experience or a place in time.
There's poems like this one, where it's like it is so much larger than me and what I was thinking, and I just went into, to that place and—and yet behind it probably was thinking about how the kitchen table is a kind of university. It's a center, a center for learning, a center for…family, a center for nations.
I remember sitting there and the lines coming and thinking, wow, this is intriguing. I'm going to follow it and see what I learn while I'm writing.
Poetry is like singing. It's sort of like another kind of singing. But I also see it as an investigative tool and, you know, a tool for investigation. It's a useful tool when you're going through something or you're in the midst of transformation.
The gifts of earth are brought and prepared, set on the table. So it has been since creation, and it will go on.
We chase chickens or dogs away from it. Babies teethe at the corners. They scrape their knees under it.
It is here that children are given instructions on what it means to be human. We make men at it, we make women.
At this table we gossip, recall enemies and the ghosts of lovers.
Our dreams drink coffee with us as they put their arms around our children. They laugh with us at our poor falling-down selves and as we put ourselves back together once again at the kitchen table.
This table has been a house in the rain, an umbrella in the sun.
Wars have begun and ended at this table. It is a place to hide in the shadow of terror. A place to celebrate the terrible victory.
We have given birth on this table, and have prepared our parents for burial here.
At this table we sing with joy, with sorrow. We pray of suffering and remorse. We give thanks.
Perhaps the world will end at the kitchen table, while we are laughing and crying, eating of the last sweet bite.
I call it the kitchen table poem. I don't know how I came to write it, and I don't know what was going on. Some poems come directly out of an experience or a place in time.
There's poems like this one, where it's like it is so much larger than me and what I was thinking, and I just went into, to that place and—and yet behind it probably was thinking about how the kitchen table is a kind of university. It's a center, a center for learning, a center for…family, a center for nations.
I remember sitting there and the lines coming and thinking, wow, this is intriguing. I'm going to follow it and see what I learn while I'm writing.
Poetry is like singing. It's sort of like another kind of singing. But I also see it as an investigative tool and, you know, a tool for investigation. It's a useful tool when you're going through something or you're in the midst of transformation.