Joy Harjo: The Cloud Runner

From The Cloud Runner, by Joy Harjo:

I am Cloud Runner, you whispered, as I rinsed dishes and looked

out the window, the sun flaring dusky gold through our story. I

dried my hands and went outside to read the clouds.

Remember me in my children and their children, you sang.

Remember me in poetry.

Remember me when it rains, when the plants rise up in

green to drink.

Remember me in butterflies.

And then, you were gone.

Three-term U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo returns with Cloud Runner, her twelfth poetry collection, released in October 2026. Marked by raw power and profound spiritual depth, the volume serves as both a tender sanctuary for loss and a testament to the transformative nature of art.

Written in the wake of immense personal heartbreak—including the loss of her daughter—Cloud Runner explores poetry as a bridge to understanding the depths standard English fails to describe. Harjo weaves traditional, contemporary, and deeply personal reflections into lyrical compositions that meditate on grief, historical memory, and humanity. Incorporating her own visual art for the cover painting, Harjo grounds the collection in an immersive, oral, and musical rhythm that fans of her work will instantly recognize.

“I will paint, or I will write,” she said earlier this year. “[I]t’s like constructing a place, and the place can be liminal. It can be of non-earth materials. Think about what’s in a poem: a lot of the metaphor. It may not be earthbound. Maybe that’s the power of metaphor, that it takes you out of being bound.”

By transforming suffering, the collection offers readers an intimate, luminous balm for tumultuous times.

Available October 13. Pre-order now.