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Modeling a Campus Pluralism that is Generous and Confident

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A medium shot of a woman with long black hair, Joy Harjo, smiling as she speaks at a carved wooden lectern inside a chapel. She is wearing a black long-sleeved shirt and a red watch. A prominent black tattoo is visible on the back of her right hand and wrist as she gestures near the microphone. The background features ornate, dark wood paneling and pews.
Former U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo speaking at Duke Chapel.

“A sense of awe and significance was palpable in the chapel as [Joy] Harjo approached the podium.” That is how the (Duke) Chronicle student newspaper described the start of the recent event “Poetry and Spirituality” featuring former United States Poet Laureate Joy Harjo.

“A poem is a ceremony,” Harjo said to an audience that filled the main pews of Duke Chapel on March 3. “There is the title that says, 'This is the doorway,' and then you go in, and each line and each image unfolds, and then by the end of the poem … you and your spirit have met, and the spirit of the poet have met, going forward changed.”

Harjo was speaking at Duke Chapel’s 2026 Pluralism Lecture, a series launched last year to contribute to the university’s goal of “creating a rigorous scholarly community characterized by generous hospitality toward diverse religious and cultural traditions.” In the inaugural lecture, Duke alumnus and First Amendment scholar John Inazu argued for a “confident” approach to pluralism that is civil without avoiding substantial differences in belief.

A man stands at a podium with a microphone in front of a crowd.
John Inazu speaking at the 2025 Pluralism Lecture.

Presented in collaboration with the Provost’s Initiative on Pluralism, Free Inquiry, and Belonging, the Pluralism Lecture has its roots in the Chapel’s role as the moderator of Religious Life at Duke. In partnership with the Division of Student Affairs, the Chapel convenes, supports, and advocates for all twenty-four of the recognized Religious Life groups on campus that serve students, including Buddhist, Catholic, Hindu, Jewish, Mormon, Muslim, and Protestant organizations and groups. 

“To be plural does not mean uniform,” Duke Chapel Dean Luke Powery has said about a “generous” approach to pluralism on campus. “It means differentiation but that doesn’t mean difference has to be demonized. That isn’t the Duke way. Difference or diversity, even religiously or faith-wise, is embraced as a reality of the world of which Duke is a part.”

A wide-angle, low-angle shot of the Duke University Chapel, a towering Neo-Gothic stone building with a prominent bell tower against a bright blue sky with streaking white clouds. In the foreground, a row of blue "feather" banners lines a green lawn and stone walkway; the banner closest to the camera reads "at Duke WE BELIEVE" with the Duke University Chapel logo. Three students are walking along the path to the left of the chapel.
Flags on Chapel Quad celebrating the twenty-four Religious Life groups at Duke.

During her opening poetry reading at Duke Chapel, Harjo introduced poems in her upcoming book Cloud Runner by explaining that she was writing them following the death of a daughter and other family members.

“You know, you find a way to go on,” she said. “That is what poetry does for me, and I think about all of us. I think about what we have lost or are losing in this country, that is another kind of grief. I think about what this Earth is losing and so on.”

The last of the poems she read, “I Am a Prayer,” concluded: “I am a prayer of poetry speaking the soundlessness of the dead who return to speaking in a prayer. I am a prayer with children on my back, roaming the house of destruction and creation. I am a prayer without end.”

Following her poetry reading, Harjo sat down for a public conversation with Dean Powery. (Listen to the full conversation on the Chapel's Sounds of Faith podcast.)

A medium shot from behind an audience of Joy Harjo standing at an ornate wooden lectern in a chapel. She is wearing all black and looking down as she reads from a small book. The background is filled with the dark, intricate wood-carved walls and pews of the chancel.
Harjo reads one of her poems.

“Poetry is the most concise language,” she said during the discussion. “What I love about poetry is … how the words take you to wordlessness, and there you are in just a few lines.”

An important gateway into that world of wordlessness, she said, is silence.

“It is important to make friends with silence,” she said. “It's so full of wisdom and knowledge and beauty and intensity…. When we listen to silence, if we listen long enough, we know who we are. We know what a lie is. We know what truth is.”

Harjo’s poems also commented on politics. She read one about a trickster figure gaining power over people and another, "For Those Who Would Govern," that asks if leaders are more concerned about people, animals, and land than with profit-taking.

She lamented efforts to ignore the lives and history of Native Americans and others.

A man in a maroon shirt speaking from a highly detailed wooden pulpit decorated with greenery.
Graduate student Nolan Arkansas giving the introduction for poet Joy Harjo.

“Bringing everybody together and telling the story is the essential part of healing,” she said. “Multiculturalism and diversity—that is what it is about. It is not putting one person over the other. We need to come together and tell everybody's story, so we can heal together. It's not native history. It's American history.”

In responding to an audience question about her time as United States Poet Laureate from 2019 to 2022, she said that the COVID pandemic intensified the importance of poetry during her time in the role.

“Poetry organizations were almost overwhelmed with people coming for poetry,” she said, “because of what poetry does in times when you can walk out the door and die the next day.”

Asked for a final piece of advice, Harjo said, “Read a poem, write a poem, sing.”

“Most of the songs we hear are love songs, but in our communities, we have songs for everything,” she said. “You can write a song for getting up when you're terrified there might be a war…. Write a song for anxiety. Write a song for this plant that you love.”

Joy Harjo holding a book on stage while the moderator claps beside her at the end of the talk.
Harjo receives a standing ovation.

The audience responded with a standing ovation. Some in the audience embraced one another.

Following the event, Katie, a graduate student in the Nicholas School of the Environment, said she appreciated the connections Harjo made between poetry and spirituality.

“I like what she was saying about having a daily practice of writing a poem or making sure you're helping someone every day,” Katie said. “I feel like that's something that a lot of people are searching for and haven't landed on.”

Duke senior Griffin Storm, a public policy major and Duke Chapel Scholar, said he attended the event because he shares the home state of Oklahoma with Harjo and wanted to hear from a Poet Laureate.

“I resonated with what she said about silence—that if you sit in silence long enough, you can tell lies and tell the truth,” he said, consulting a page of notes he took during the event. “She told us to take our earbuds out. I think that's something we can all benefit from—avoiding the constant noise.”

Senior Abigail Bergan, a public policy and political science major, said Harjo is her favorite living poet.

“Joy Harjo, and poetry in general, and indigenous knowledge is just a balm for the soul,” Bergan said. “It was really wonderful to have this moment of peace and calm in a world and in a time that feels deeply tumultuous.”

Gaby Dunn is a senior sociology major pursuing a certificate in creative writing and poetry.

Two audience members embracing in the pews after the event in a warmly lit hall.
Audience members embrace at the end of the event.

“This has definitely been such an affirming event to go to, as someone who is interested in poetry and writes a lot of poetry,” she said. Harjo’s example of being an artist who works in poetry, memoir, music, and painting showed Dunn that “there's space in my life and my career to explore all of those things, and that the pursuit of them isn't meaningless or going to be unfruitful.”

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