Jónína Kirton is a Red River Métis/Icelandic poet. She graduated from the Simon Fraser University’s Writer’s Studio in 2007, where she is now an instructor. Although she acknowledges and is thankful for the teachings offered through academic institutions, she leans heavily into what some term ‘other ways of knowing’. Her writing is often a weaving of body and land as she firmly believes that until we care for women’s bodies we will not care for the earth. 

A late blooming poet she was sixty-one when she received the 2016 Vancouver’s Mayor’s Arts Award for an Emerging Artist in the Literary Arts category. Her second collection of poetry, An Honest Woman, was a finalist in the 2018 Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize. Her third collection, Standing in a River of Time, was released in 2022 with Talonbooks. 

A landless Métis citizen she currently lives in New Westminster, British Columbia, the unceded territory of many Coast Salish nations, including the Qayqayt, S’ólh Téméxw (Stó:lō), sc̓əwaθenaɁɬ təməxʷ(Tsawwassen), šxʷməθkʷəy̓əmaɁɬ təməxʷ (Musqueam), Sḵwxwú7mesh, səl̓ilwətaɁɬ təməxʷ (Tsleil-Waututh), kʷikʷəƛ̓əm, Stz’uminus, sq̓əc̓iy̓aɁɬ təməxʷ (Katzie) and Kwantlen.