Jordan Abel


Jordan Abel is a Nisga'a poet who lives and works in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

Life and work

Abel, a Nisga'a poet, was born in British Columbia. Formerly a doctoral student at Simon Fraser University in the Department of English, he is currently a professor at the University of Alberta. Abel's work addresses settler-colonialism directly, often through conceptual poetic approaches to overtly colonial texts.
His first book of poetry, The Place of Scraps, used as source text the work of 20th century ethnographer Marius Barbeau. It won the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize and was a finalist for the Gerald Lampert Award in 2014. His second book, Un/inhabited, was named one of the best 75 books of 2015 by the CBC.
Abel's third and most recent book of poetry, Injun, won the Griffin Poetry Prize in 2017. The poems were based on 91 Western novels written during the past three centuries.
Abel's fourth book of poetry, NISHGA, is yet to be released. It was originally slated for release on 14 April 2020, but was delayed to 20 December 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Poetry