Perhaps the World Ends Here

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1994

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Poem Analysis

Themes

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Literary Devices

Further Reading & Resources

Related Poems

“Speaking Tree” by Joy Harjo (2015)

Published as part of her collection Conflict Resolutions for Holy Beings, “Speaking Tree” is an example of Harjo’s environmental poetry. Harjo, who has a reverence for nature and caring for the earth, creates a speaker who proclaims, “I am a woman longing to be a tree” (Line 10). This poem will give readers a sense of Harjo’s earthly sentiments and how deeply she values nature.

“For Calling the Spirit Back from Wandering the Earth in Its Human Feet” by Joy Harjo (2015)

Also published in Harjo’s 2015 collection, Conflict Resolutions for Holy Beings, this poem calls readers to “Acknowledge this earth” (Line 7). So much of Harjo’s poetry is about gratitude, a theme that runs through both “Perhaps the World Ends Here” and this poem. Reading these two poems alongside each other will give a reader a clearer understanding of Harjo’s message to “help the next person find their way through the dark” (Line 30).

“The Powwow at the End of the World” by Sherman Alexie (1996)

Sherman Alexie is a well-known Native American poet who writes often of Native American life on the reservation. “The Powwow at the End of the World” is a unique poem to read alongside Harjo’s “Perhaps the World Ends Here” as both deal with the concept of apocalypse. Both poems comment on the importance of community and gathering, especially in the face of demise and destruction.

Further Literary Resources

“Joy Harjo’s poetry sparks discussions on environment” by Una Wilson at Wake Forest University (2022)

This article illuminates Harjo’s environmental activism and how she believes that art is essential to culture. Because “Perhaps the World Ends Here” comments on collective humanity, this essay will be indispensable to understanding Harjo’s poetic view; Harjo states that “humans all over the world—all races—will come to need our ways of knowing, our ways of caring for the earth, to save us from environmental downfall.”

“Joy Harjo, The Poet of American Memory” by Maya Philips, The New Yorker (2019)

In this article, published in the wake of Harjo’s appointment as US Poet Laureate, Harjo is quoted on her responsibility to “all voices, all women, all of my tribe, all people, all earth, and beyond that to all beginnings and endings.” The article elucidates Harjo’s career as a poet and what she’s sought out to achieve in using poetry to speak to a broad audience.

“Native American Women’s Poetry” by Layli Long Soldier, Drunken Boat

This essay uses a quotation by Harjo as a jumping-off point to talk more deeply about Native American women’s poetry. The author explores the lives of contemporary Native women and introduces a reader several poems, voices, and concepts as related to Indigenous peoples and writings.