16 pages • 32 minutes read
Joy HarjoFor Calling the Spirit Back from Wandering the Earth in Its Human Feet
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2015A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Literary Devices
Free Verse
This poem is written in free verse, lacking a regular meter or rhyme scheme. Many modern poets use this form. It mimics the more informal quality of regular speech and makes poems feel more accessible and easier to understand. Harjo abjures more formal qualities such as rhyme, meter, and line breaks. Instead, each sentence reads to the end of the margins and only breaks where the margins dictate. This mimics typical prose writing.
Unlike prose writing, Harjo makes liberal use of stanza breaks, grouping ideas into short paragraphs and letting other lines stand alone to draw attention to themselves. This variation of short paragraphs and independently floating sentences creates rhythm and musicality. At the same time, the informal tone makes the reader feel that the speaker is addressing them in conversation.
Direct Address
Many of Harjo’s poems address the reader directly. This establishes intimacy, helping the reader feel the poem is meant for them. It also implies that the speaker’s advice is universal; that all of us suffer from a wandering spirit. The speaker addresses the reader as if they know that the reader is already lost, that their spirit is wandering the world. It emphasizes one of the poem’s themes, which is the need for people to connect with one another out of mutual respect and sympathy. The speaker gives the directive to “help the next person” (Line 30). The poem itself is following that mandate; it tells the reader how to call their spirit back, while reassuring them that they are not alone.
Humor
The title of the poem is serious and metaphysical. It tells the reader that the poem will be about a lofty subject, “the spirit.” Yet the first lines of the poem shift to the more mundane, which may be Harjo’s attempt to draw the reader in and set their mind at ease. It establishes that the poem’s speaker has a sense of humor and can relate to ordinary people in a mundane world. The line—“put down that bag of potato chips, that white bread, that bottle of pop” (Line 1) emphasizes the negative effect of junk food and helps make the poem’s spiritual theme more relatable. It allows the reader to connect with the poem and feel that the speaker is addressing them.
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By Joy Harjo
