Former U.S. Poet Laureate Harjo (Poet Warrior) presents 50 vignettes on the "why" of writing poetry and song, which she aptly describes as a means of "catching light in the dark." Harjo explains how she began creating poetry because she needed a language that was beyond ordinary and found it by linking her native culture with the power of education. As a single mother in 1967, she relied on the fellowship and kindness of friends and community to support her dreams of writing while she raised two children. Harjo considers every poem love poetry with a beat because the words begin and end with rhythm. Whether the poet is writing about keeping the porch light on or an old rundown car, there is rhythm and beat. Harjo encourages listening to the music of cultures and tells how she discovered her roots (the Tulsa-born poet is an enrolled member of the Muscogee Nation). Through these 50 entries, readers will see how a poet grows and develops, both as a singular individual and a member of a society. VERDICT This highly recommended book is a comforting island for writers who enjoy reading about how authors succeed.—Joyce Sparrow

Memoir, poetry, and criticism come together in this slim but potent treatise on "the why of writing poetry" from Harjo (Poet Warrior: A Memoir). Arranged into 50 vignettes (one for each of Harjo's 50 years as a published poet), the collection shows how writing "can be useful as a tool for finding the way into or through the dark." For Harjo, that darkness includes the papal bulls that declared "indigenous peoples as non-humans" and the history of manifest destiny, which led to mass displacement and genocide: "Indigenous artists must be part of the leadership in the revision of the American story," she writes. Harjo also reflects on the start of her poetry career when she was a full-time student and single mother of two; the despair that accompanied Donald Trump's presidency ("When the despot ineptly sought to turn the country to a totalitarian nightmare, where was poetry?"); the ravages of the Covid-19 pandemic; and her first encounters with literature: reading the Bible, "the only book in our home." Her musings on the "story we call ‘America'?" hit home, and her enduring message—that writing can be redemptive—resonates: "To write is to make a mark in the world, to assert ‘I am.'?" The result is a rousing testament to the power of storytelling. (Oct.)