The literary devices that indicate the corruption of nature by human vices in Joy Harjo's poem "Talking with the Sun" are personification and juxtaposition.

Harjo personifies the sun throughout the poem, not least in the title. She repeatedly calls the sun a "relative" of humanity and says that human beings rely on the "kindnesses" of both the sun and the earth. In the case of the earth, Harjo points out, this kindness has not been returned, since humanity is constantly exploiting the earth's resources in a frenzy of short-sighted greed. She asks:

How much more oil can be drained,
Without replacement; without reciprocity?

The poet also employs juxtaposition repeatedly. She places ceremonies of cosmic significance next to the tawdry symbols of contemporary capitalism. The native Americans dance all night to emphasize their connection to the "stars and planets dancing with us overhead" while Walmart is "just down the road." Meanwhile, the quantum physicists who represent the cutting edge of contemporary science are only just beginning to catch up with Native American thought in their notion that "everything is connected dynamically / at an intimate level."