Can you understand heritage without knowing the language? Jónína Kirton's poetry explores the idea
CBC Radio | Posted: December 2, 2022 7:57 PM | Last Updated: December 2, 2022
Jónína Kirton is a Métis author and poet from Portage la Prairie, Man. Her 2018 poetry collection, An Honest Woman, was a finalist for the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize. Kirton currently lives in the unceded territory of the Musqueam, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh and Tsleil-Waututh Peoples, where she teaches at The Writer's Studio at Simon Fraser University.
Kirton's father was Indigenous; her mother of Icelandic heritage. Her latest is Standing in a River of Time, a book that is both emotional and experimental in scope as it combines poetry and memoir to expose the intergenerational effects of economic anxiety, race and colonization. Kirton reflects on painful memories, her journey of spiritual healing and the guiding power of her ancestors.
Kirton spoke with Shelagh Rogers about writing Standing in a River of Time.
The ties that bind
"The Icelandic side of my maternal family were hard working farmers and they were really into success. So many of them have gone on to be multi-millionaires, which is astounding, given their beginnings. My mom had 16 brothers and sisters…and so they were just fixated on becoming rich and successful. Whereas the Métis side of my paternal family was more interested in kinship and family. They worked very hard, but they also loved to play very hard.
The Métis side of my paternal family was more interested in kinship and family. They worked very hard, but they also loved to play very hard.
"I loved going to my Métis aunties' houses, it was just filled with warmth. And so there was this coldness on the Icelandic side, loving in their own way. But it was sort of a really, 'You made your bed, you lie in it' sort of upbringing.
"And on the other side, it was like, 'We love you no matter what you did.'"
Family dynamics
"My father was ashamed…he told my mother that he hated being native, which breaks my heart.
"I could feel his pain, even as a small child. I remember looking at him, not understanding what it was from, and sometimes feeling it was my mother's fault.
"Even though she was a lovely woman, I could see she hurt his feelings sometimes. I do now understand that that was just them disconnecting around the ways in which they were."
Respect for the ancestors
"There's been much discussion about whether you can even really understand our culture without knowing our language. And so that makes me feel a little bit on the outside.
"I think that it really left a hole in a way, but in another way it made me have to seek that through another method. And I think I saw it through poetry. So in a way, I feel as if they can speak to me through poetry.
I think there's other ways to speak to us if we're really able to listen.
"And when I write, I do get messages, as I call them. So lines will come to me, and sometimes I get pictures, actual visual pictures. I have to interpret what that picture means. And so then that comes into the poetry — that interpreting of what I'm being shown.
"So I think there's other ways to speak to us if we're really able to listen."
Jónína Kirton's comments have been edited for length and clarity.