“Honoring” by Joy Harjo

 

Who sings to the plants

That are grown for our plates?

Are they gathered lovingly

In aprons or arms?

Or do they suffer the fate

Of the motor-driven whip

Of the monster reaper?

No song at all, only

The sound of money

Being stacked in a bank

Who stitched the seams in my clothes

One line after another?

Was the room sweaty and dark

With no hour to spare?

Did she have enough to eat?

Did she have a home anywhere?

Or did she live on the floor?

And where were the children?

Or was the seamstress the child

With no home of his or her own?

Who sacrifices to make clothes

For strangers of another country?

And why?

Let’s remember to thank the grower of food

The picker, the driver,

The sun and the rain.

Let’s remember to thank each maker of stitch

Any layer of pattern,

The dyer of color

In the immense house of beauty and pain.

Let’s honor the maker.

Let’s honor what’s made.

 

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Food for Thought—

 

1. In which lines does Harjo apply her cultural values to an overall lesson for the reader? How does her use of teaching to respect the seamstress create a moral guide for how to respect others in a community?

 

2. How does Harjo’s description of the seamstress’s work relate to the labor theory of value, which suggests that a product is worth the value of the labor spent producing it? Do you think Harjo would agree with this theory? In what ways does the seamstress’s situation relate to issues surrounding labor today?

 

3. How do the stark comparisons of the two collection methods (of the plants) in the beginning of the poem contribute to the reader’s understanding of Harjo’s message? What feeling does she convey by using this technique?

 

4. Why does Harjo choose to focus so much on the life of the seamstress? What effect do the details have on your view of this hypothetical subject?

 

5. How does the exploitation of land shown in the poem relate to the environmental conditions we’ve been seeing in areas like California and Oregon?

 

6. Have we in the United States made any progress regarding the exploitation of resources and people since the Trail of Tears time period? Based on her use of language and perspective, what position do you think Harjo would take?

 

7. In her memoir, Crazy Brave, how does Harjo express the theme of “honoring the making and the maker”?

 

8. If you’ve read Crazy Brave or are otherwise familiar with Harjo’s life, can you think of events in her life that may have inspired this poem?