Biography

Jenna Robinson (M.A., LMFT, PTR) is a multi-racial, Bay Area-based poetry therapist, professor, and performance poet informed by a narrative worldview. A two-time Hawaiʻi Slam champion and 2015 National Poetry Slam finalist, she has facilitated multimodal poetry therapy workshops with youth, adults, and families across California and Hawaiʻi. Through her master’s program and clinical training in family violence and poetry therapy, Jenna has developed a therapy approach melding narrative therapy, liberation psychology, expressive arts, spoken word poetry, and collective practices. She values working alongside people responding to trauma, those navigating family violence, and youth impacted by systems in her private practice, while also directing Bay Area Creative’s therapeutic writing program, Revisions. She teaches as an assistant professor in the Expressive Arts Therapy concentration of the M.A. in Counseling Psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies and contributes to the field through her service on the board of the National Association for Poetry Therapy.

Education

M.A. in Counseling Psychology - Concentration in Expressive Arts Therapy, California Institute for Integral Studies, 2019

B.A. in History & Ethnic Studies, University of Hawai’i - Manoa, 2012

Awards & Distinctions

Robinson, J. (2024). Distinguished Service Award, National Association for Poetry Therapy

Publications

Robinson, J. (2026, March). [Review of the book Words Make a Way Through Fire: Healing After My Brother’s Suicide, by C.S. Dumitru]. NAPT Museletter. 

vanMeenen, K., Reiter, S., &. Robinson, J. (Eds.) (2025). Giving Sorrow Words: Poems of Strength and Solace for Survivors. National Association for Poetry Therapy.  

Robinson, J. (2024). Introduction. In Unheard Voices: Poems from Juvenile Hall Youth and Bay Area Students (pp. 4-5). Bay Area Creative. 

Robinson, J. (2014). The Lauhala Mat. In L. O. M. A. Keawe, Marsha MacDowell, & C. Kurt Dewhurst (Eds.), Ike Ulana Lau Hala: The Vitality and Vibrancy of Lau Hala Weaving Traditions in Hawaii (pp. 125-128). University of Hawai'i Press.