Healing Wounds in Joy Harjo’s Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings and An American Sunrise

This paper deals with the healing of trauma of memory and history in Joy Harjo’s two recent volumes Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings (2015) and An American Sunrise (2019). Such a task is achieved by rewriting the story from the perspective of the victimized by drawing upon themes of unison with nature, unity and fluidity of time, and music as an alternative language of nature, along with the English language, once considered a space of personal erasure, is now presented as the transformational space of naming and claiming. Healing through forgiveness ensues leading to transcendence over loss through the grace of letting go. The process presented is one of circular journeying in places and spaces of memory to transform anger into grace and forgiveness, and to perceive home as an internal space of memory rather than a place lost to an atrocious past. Keywords: healing, trauma, memory, history, alternative language of nature, grace, circular journeying, transcendence, naming and claiming