{"id":133,"date":"2025-08-17T15:52:43","date_gmt":"2025-08-17T15:52:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/?page_id=133"},"modified":"2025-09-09T18:58:58","modified_gmt":"2025-09-09T18:58:58","slug":"joy-harjo-rabbit-is-up-to-tricks-2008","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/texts\/joy-harjo-rabbit-is-up-to-tricks-2008\/","title":{"rendered":"Joy Harjo, \u201cRabbit Is Up to Tricks\u201d (2008)"},"content":{"rendered":"

INTRODUCTION<\/h3>\n
\"Harjo\"<\/a>
Joy Harjo (Vogue)<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Joy Harjo (1951- )<\/a> is a Native American poet born in Oklahoma and a member of the the Muscogee (Creek) Nation.\u00a0 \u00a0She has published several volumes of poetry, two memoirs, and various other types of text and art, including children’s books.\u00a0 Harjo served as US poet laureate from 2019 to 2022. Edward Hirsch closes his book, The Heart of American Poetry<\/em>, with this poem by Harjo, written in 2004 and published in 2008.\u00a0 He writes that “Harjo’s project has been to find resourceful ways of reminding us that there is ground under our feet, that we are part of the land, and the land is part of us” (p. 439).\u00a0 \u00a0In “Rabbit Is Up to Tricks,” Harjo uses parable and parallelism to convey an emotionally powerful narrative that is both American and personal.<\/p>\n

\n

Rabbit Is Up to Tricks<\/strong><\/h3>\n

In a world long before this one, there was enough for
\neveryone,
\nUntil somebody got out of line.
\nWe heard it was Rabbit, fooling around with clay and the
\nwind.
\nEverybody was tired of his tricks and no one would play
\nwith him;
\nHe was lonely in this world.
\nSo Rabbit thought to make a person.
\nAnd when he blew into the mouth of that crude figure to see
\nWhat would happen,
\nThe clay man stood up.
\nRabbit showed the clay man how to steal a chicken.
\nThe clay man obeyed.
\nThen Rabbit showed him how to steal corn.
\nThe clay man obeyed.
\nThen he showed him how to steal someone else\u2019s wife.
\nThe clay man obeyed.
\nRabbit felt important and powerful.
\nThe clay man felt important and powerful.
\nAnd once that clay man started he could not stop.
\nOnce he took that chicken he wanted all the chickens.
\nAnd once he took that corn he wanted all the corn.
\nAnd once he took that wife, he wanted all the wives.
\nHe was insatiable.
\nThen he had a taste of gold and he wanted all the gold.
\nThen it was land and anything else he saw.
\nHis wanting only made him want more.
\nSoon it was countries, and then it was trade.
\nThe wanting infected the earth.
\nWe lost track of the purpose and reason for life.
\nWe began to forget our songs. We forgot our stories.
\nWe could no longer see or hear our ancestors,
\nOr talk with each other across the kitchen table.
\nForests were being mowed down all over the world.
\nAnd Rabbit had no place to play.
\nRabbit\u2019s trick had backfired.
\nRabbit tried to call the clay man back,
\nBut when the clay man wouldn\u2019t listen
\nRabbit realized he\u2019d made a clay man with no ears.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

INTRODUCTION Joy Harjo (1951- ) is a Native American poet born in Oklahoma and a member of the the Muscogee (Creek) Nation.\u00a0 \u00a0She has published several volumes of poetry, two memoirs, and various other types of text and art, including children’s books.\u00a0 Harjo served as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":373,"featured_media":0,"parent":258,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-133","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/373"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/133\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":624,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/133\/revisions\/624"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}