page as bone – ink as bloodFront Cover

ISBN: 9780889229235 | paperback / softback

$16.95 | 96 pages | Pub. Date: 2015
6 W × 9 H × .5 D inches
Poetry | Backlist | Bisac: POE015000
ISBN 13: 9780889229235 | Rights: WORLD

page as bone – ink as blood
By Jónína Kirton

Death, desire, and divination are the threads running through Jónína Kirton’s debut collection of poems and lyric prose. Delicate and dark, the pieces are like whispers in the night – a haunted, quiet telling of truths the mind has locked away but the body remembers. Loosely autobiographical, these are the weavings of a wagon-goddess who ventures into the double-world existence as a mixed-race woman. In her struggle for footing in this in-between space, she moves from the disco days of trance dance to contemplations in her dream kitchen as a mother and wife.

With this collection, Kirton adds her voice to the call for the kind of fierce honesty referred to by Muriel Rukeyser when she asked, What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life? The world would split open. Kirton tells her truth with gentleness and patience, splitting the world open one line at a time.

“[Kirton] retraces her Métis inheritance and her own arduous journey to becoming a twenty-first-century guide we are much in need of.”
—Betsy Warland

“Kirton’s poems are peacemaking, both generous gesture and much-needed literary poultice.”
—Joanne Arnott

By Jónína Kirton

Jónína Kirton (see pronunciation aid) is a prairie-born Métis/Icelandic poet, author, and facilitator. She currently lives in Vancouver, on the unceded territory of the Coast Salish peoples. Her first collection of poetry, page as bone – ink as blood was released to wide acclaim by Talonbooks in 2015. Her second collection of poetry, An Honest Woman, was published in 2017.

Read more about Jónína Kirton

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news | 2015-08-24
Tonight! Jónína Kirton at McNally Robinson in Winnipeg

…and signing of her Spring 2015 poetry collection, page as bone – ink as blood, with special guest reader Duncan Mercredi. The …

news | 2015-04-24
We Have Liftoff! (Photos from Talon’s Spring 2015 Poetry Launch in Vancouver)

…beautifully from her first collection of poetry, page as bone – ink as blood ($16.95). Among other poems, Kirton read “What Do …