Source document: https://docs-lawep.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/1697646256382.pdf (Canada)
Jónína Kirton Jónína Kirton, a Métis Icelandic poet, graduated from the Simon Fraser University Writer’s Studio in 2007 and is currently an Adjunct Professor with the UBC Creative Writing Program.

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 (Talonbooks, 2017), was a finalist in the 2018 Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize.
Her third book, Standing in a River of Time (Talonbooks, 2022), merges poetry and lyrical memoir to expose the intergenerational effects of colonization on a Métis family.
to remembering today I remembered the alchemy within that breast bone belief in self the secret yearning to walk that line where danger thrilled cells hum to the sound of voice shrill screaming atop the roller coaster of wanting the forbidden believing it necessary to ignore red lights flashing caution to the wind the downward spiral rails clacking head back neck open hands holding tight it takes a strong body to face danger in this way so when my niece asked me to go on that ride I said yes knowing it would later hurt I just wanted to share one last ride with her to pretend I can still do it but only with her I just wanted her to know that part of me that we are so alike risk reward not just a formula but rather a calculation of desire against vulnerability once so much easier to do with a strong body a neck that does not ache now peril around every corner that Coney Island ride downsized to accommodate need for safety the length shorter less time for gravity to take hold than Catherine the Great had in mind pulled up that wooden hill again and again at the top we take a breath leave everything to chance I just wanted my niece to know I was once fearless that we are so alike © Jónína Kirton