KPU English graduate wins Indigenous Voices Award for poetry
Jordan Redekop-Jones is one of four winners in the “Unpublished Poetry” category
Jordan Redekop-Jones won an award for her collection titled On the Threshold, I Taste Lightning. (Submitted/James Timmins)
Recent Kwantlen Polytechnic University graduate, Jordan Redekop-Jones, is one of four winners for this year’s Indigenous Voices Awards’ “Unpublished Poetry” category.
Since 2017, the Indigenous Voices Awards have supported Indigenous literary arts and artists by awarding monetary prizes to outstanding work by Indigenous writers who have demonstrated connection to the Indigenous lands in Canada.
Winners in the “Unpublished” categories this year received a cash prize of $500, along with editorial support and possible publication from Yarrow Magazine, a digital magazine that highlights Indigenous poetry, fiction, and non-fiction.
Redekop-Jones, who has a mixed Indigenous and Anglo-Indian background, says her collection of five works titled On the Threshold, I Taste Lightning were all written during different stages of her reconnection with her cultures and processing the grief she experienced learning about where she is from.
“I like to think the dreamlike quality of my work suspends readers in an environment of my own creation so that they are better able to understand the liminal space I occupy,” Redekop-Jones wrote in an email to The Runner.
“Reconnecting can be very intense and at times disorienting, but I also want to highlight the beauty of experiencing cultures you have been displaced from for the first time.”
It means a lot to Redekop-Jones to win with this collection in the midst of reconnecting with her Indigenous heritage. She says she never imagined someone with her background could win an award like this.
“Receiving this award was one of the few moments in my life, where I felt like I have been given permission to tell my story as I see it. I allowed myself not to give into the pressure to conform to one cultural identity over the other and instead talk about their intersections, honouring my ancestors and the stories they have passed down through me equally,” Redekop-Jones wrote.
“Winning this award felt like an acknowledgement of me as a whole, not as fractions and I am so grateful for that.”
Redekop-Jones has been writing poetry since elementary school, and says her education at KPU helped her develop new themes incorporated into her poetry and made her work more focused.
She highlights literary courses she took in the English department with KPU instructors Gillian Bright and Kris Singh kick-started the inspiration for the themes represented in her work.
Redekop-Jones hopes people like her who read her work will find inspiration to reconnect with their own communities.
“I’ve never seen someone with my particular background, and so I assume that there’s a lot of people with mixed backgrounds like mine that feel underrepresented,” she wrote.
“I hope that through my work, people are able to feel confident enough to start reconnecting with their cultures and learning more about themselves through that.”
She encourages others who want to pursue writing to get started.
“Just go for it. You’re not gonna regret it, and the right doors will open right when they’re supposed to,” Redekop-Jones wrote.
To learn more about the Indigenous Voices Awards and Redekop-Jones, visit indigenousvoicesawards.org/ and instagram.com/j.r.jones__/.
