Born and raised in Squamish and North Vancouver, Kyla Jamieson is a poet, anti-oppressive educator, and disability advocate. Guided by her belief in the universality of creativity, her cultural work centres self-expression, interdependence, and embodiment.

I am writing towards care-full futures where creativity is a tool we use to connect with ourselves and each other while envisioning possibilities beyond the status quo.

In her début poetry collection, Body Count (Nightwood Editions, 2020), Kyla sifted through the raw material of her life before and after a disabling mild Traumatic Brain Injury in search of new understandings of self and worth. Body Count was a CBC Best Poetry Book of 2020 and received praise for its candour, humour, and complexity.

Poetry can open portals to feelings we haven’t felt safe to feel and give us language for experiences we haven’t known how to articulate. By creating space for the complexities of reality, poetic language invites us to embrace our truths and find pathways back home to ourselves.

Kyla earned her BFA and MFA in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia while living and relying on the unceded traditional territories of the Squamish, Musqueam, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations. She has served as a literary editor of both poetry and prose in roles with SAD Mag and PRISM international, and is passionate about supporting emerging writers.