Published in 1989, and in print continuously since that time, Secrets From the
Center of the World, with both an Italian and a French edition, contains the photographs of Stephen Strom and the words of
Muscogee poet, Joy Harjo.
"A testament to the earth's living spirit. This volume is a book of beauty, pleasing to the ear and eye . . . . Moving prose and colorful photographs that originated in the heart and speak to us of the center of our being."
American Indian Culture and Research Journal
"Deeply affecting and memorable. . . . An artist to be followed."
Parabola
"A rare symbiotic relationship of complementary visions. . . . Rare beauty."
Northwest Review
"The book Secrets for the Center of the World exhibits an eye for a startlingly altered and refreshing perspective. Steven [sic] Strom's photographs reveal secrets of the obvious that have been concealed by the prevalent dissembling intimacy of ecoporn. Textures of undulant landforms are painted with sparse desert plant communities. Relationships are exposed. Landscape icons are shunned. It wasn't til I began struggling with the issue of ecoporn that the exceptional nature of these photographs was manifest. They are taken, for the most part, at midday! No blush of alpenglow here."
José Knighton, poet, hiker and bioregionalist and manager of the Back of Beyond bookstore in Moab, UT.
From Ecoporn and the Manipulation of Desire, reprinted in Wild Earth: Wild Ideas for an Earth Out of Balance,
Tom Butler, Editor, Milkweed Editions, 2002.
Secrets from the Center of the World was published by the University of Arizona Press in 1989.
Purchase Secrets from the Center of the World.
Joy Harjo is a multi-talented artist of the Mvskoke/Creek Nation. She is an
internationally known poet, performer, writer and musician. She has published seven books of acclaimed poetry.
Joy has received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native Writers Circle of The Americas.
She has also received the 2003 Arrell Gibson Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Oklahoma Center for
the Book. How We Became Human: New and Selected Poems
won the 2003 Oklahoma Book Award for poetry.
Reinventing the Enemy's Language was a finalist for the Oklahoma Book Award in 1998.
In 1995 The Woman Who Fell From the Sky won the Oklahoma Book Award in Poetry.
Harjo's first music CD, Letter from the End of the 20th Century was released by Silver Wave Records in 1997. The album was honored by the First Americans in the Arts for Outstanding Musical Achievement and called by Pulse Magazine the "best dub poetry album recorded in North America". Her recently released second CD or original songs, Native Joy for Real crosses over many genres and has been praised for its daring brilliance.
Stephen Strom is an Astronomer at the National Optical Astronomy Observatory in Tucson. Since 1978, Stephen
has photographed extensively in the American Southwest. His work has appeared in more than 30
exhibitions throughout the U.S.
His interpretations of landscapes in the Four Corners region accompany Joy Harjo's poems in Secrets
from the Center of the World, part of the Sun Tracks series (University of Arizona Press, 1989). His photographs of Canyon de Chelly on the Navajo Nation
accompany Laura Tohe's poetry and prose in Tséyi' / Deep in the Rock: Reflections on Canyon de Chelly.
His photographs near his home in southeastern Arizona are included in Sonoita Plain: Views from a Southwestern Grassland,
also from the University of Arizona Press, 2005. He is currently completing a book on Otero Mesa in southern New Mexico with Greg McNamee and Stephen Capra.
