NEW YORK – U.S. poet laureate Joy Harjo will serve a third, one-year term and has launched an online project that celebrates Native American poets around the country. Her reappointment was announced Thursday by the Library of Congress, and her new term begins in September. Poetry has provided doorways for joy, grief and understanding in the midst of turmoil and pandemic,” Harjo, the first Native American to be named poet laureate, said in a statement. “I welcome the opportunity of a third term to activate my project and visit communities to share Native poetry. It features a digital map of 47 contemporary writers, including Harjo, Louise Erdrich and Natalie Diaz.
LOS ANGELES A new documentary about the life and work of Little House on the Prairie author Laura Ingalls Wilder puts her novels scattered racist references in historical context, the films producers said. Wilders work reflects the perspective of her family and attitudes in the late 1800s Midwest, the setting for the coming-of-age novels based on her childhood, said Mary McDonagh Murphy, director and producer of PBS American Masters biography. I think we can count on her as a reliable narrator for much of that, she said. Michael Kantor, the executive producer of Laura Ingalls Wilder, and Murphy said the documentary's development relied on experts, including the head of Native American initiatives at the Minnesota Historical Society. Weve been working very carefully with the academic community to make sure we tell a fair and truthful history, which we think will be no less interesting, Kantor said.
