Name: Sandra Achaia
ID: 90014 0822
Journal #4
Remember by Joy Harjo Joy Harjo is not only a native American poet, but also she is a musician and a performer. She was influenced by her aunts and grandma who introduced her to their traditional story telling. Therefore, that is what she will share with the reader in her poem "Remember" from a book called How we become Human. Throughout the poem, Joy is frequently using the word "remember" and the pronoun "you" which engages the reader. This make him feel he is taking part in the poem, and let him feel concerned to remember and share memories mentioned in the poem. Also, it can be noted that the vocabulary of nature is ubiquitous: sky, stars, moon, sun, earth... All of the above, were already
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Fathers were mentioned briefly, they also contributed to give life to their child but they are not valued like mothers from whom the essence of life is drawn. However, one 's existence is related to the importance of generations that give life to one another. In addition to the physical mother, mother nature as well, gave humans "form and breath". Besides, Joy considers earth as human 's skin that has many colors "red earth, black earth, white earth..." representing different ethnicities. Each time, she mentioned the word "earth" to stress the unity between people. She adds an analogy between man and nature in the fact that both have histories. The personification in the evocation of the wind described as a person singing "Kiowa war" when natives were slaughtered, and dancing modern songs, implies that people do not have to forget their ancestors, their roots, their culture and history. Both the verbs singing and dancing demonstrates that the ancestors ' memory is alive. Moreover, as every action needs more than one person to be realized like language or dancing, also the existence of one 's life needed the contribution of numerous factors to occur. At the end, the last word of the poem is "Remember" that brings us to the beginning of the poem with the same word. Beside its repetition, it reflects the continuous cycle of life that never