Indigenous Speaker Series with Marilyn Dumont, ‘90 BA

In this hybrid event, Marilyn Dumont will share insights from her most recent poetry book, South Side of a Kinless River, which wrestles with concepts of Métis identity in a nation and territory that would rather erase it. Métis identity, land loss, sexual relationships between Indigenous women and European men, and midwifery by Indigenous women of the nascent settler communities figure into these poems. They add up to a Métis woman’s prairie history, one that helps us feel the violence in how those contributions and wisdoms have been suppressed and denied. 

Following the talk, Augustana assistant professor Willow White will host a moderated conversation with Marilyn. For those attending in person, there will also be a community meal, book sale and signing. 

If you would like to purchase a copy of South Side of a Kinless River in advance, you may do so here.



Métis poet, writer, and Professor Marilyn Dumont teaches for the faculties of Arts and Native Studies at the University of Alberta and is proud of Métis family lines from her Mother’s - Vaness / Dufresne families and her father’s - Boudreau/Dumont families. She was awarded the 2018 Lifetime Membership from the League of Canadian Poets for her contributions to poetry in Canada. In 2019, she received the University of Alberta Distinguished Alumni Award and the Alberta Lieutenant Governor’s Distinguished Artist Award, and in 2022 was Awarded the Alberta Queen’s Platinum Jubilee medal for public service. Her four collections of poetry have won provincial or national awards: A Really Good Brown Girl (1996); green girl dreams Mountains (2001); that tongued belonging (2007); The Pemmican Eaters (2015). A fifth collection surrounding Indigenous history of Edmonton, called South Side of a Kinless River was published by Brick Books in 2024.