How Poetry Saved My Life: A Hustler's Memoir

I had heard Amber Dawn read at the Sex Workers Art Show in Atlanta, GA, several years ago and I'd been wanting to hear more from her since then. How Poetry Saved My Life is wonderfully and intelligently written, enlightening and sometimes heartbreaking. But it's not a sob story. It's not a tale of rescue. It's simply her truth. How Poetry Saved My life is a fast read in terms of page count, but it's a lush and thought-stirring one. I sincerely hope to see more of Dawn's writing and poetry soon.

PROUD OF HER SHARING. GOOD JOB! LETTING OTHERS KNOW WHAT YOU HAVE LIVED IS VALUABLE LOVE YOU. AND YOUR PARTNER.

So many memoirs are written by non-writers, so it's exciting when you come across a tale of one life that is both fascinating in content and beautifully written.

This is maybe one of the top five best books I've read ever. My copy is full of underlines and notes and I want to quote it all the time.

What an incredible talent. One of the most important books I've read in years.

How Poetry Saved My Life is a gorgeous example of an emotional journey told in prose and various forms of poetry. Amber Dawn's memoir is an invitation to visit places that "have been made silent, small or wounded." For this Vancouver, British Columbia author, it is "the terrain of sex work, queer identity, and survivor pride." Dawn invites readers to create a final section of How Poetry Saved My Life, exploring their own stories of survival and finding community. She has, in fact, scattered such challenges throughout the book. It's not characteristic to see an author's photo on the cover of her book nor is it typical to read the memoir of a sex worker, even though Dawn estimates there are over 10,000, mainly women, in Vancouver, B.C. alone. How Poetry Saved My Life opens with a quote by Jeanette Winterson from her memoir, Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal: A tough life needs a tough language--and that is what poetry is. That is what literature offers--a language powerful enough to say how it is. It isn't a hiding place. It is a finding place. Dawn is indebted to "queers and feminists, sex workers and radical culture makers, nonconformists and trailblazers, artists and healers, missing woman and justice fighters for her writing." She says that her writing is comprised of the "struggles and accomplishments of many." How Poetry Saved My Life is divided into three sections--Outside, Inside and Inward. Outside is a testament to "outdoor or survival street work." As Dawn says, "Crisis and creativity can be a potent combination." Inside is about her "safer" indoor work during which time she developed her voice and craft as a writer and paid for her university education in creative writing. Inward offers reflections on what it means to Amber Dawn to "gain personal reconciliation and closure." The poem, "Oral Tradition," that opens the Outside section is a glosa. In a glosa, a poet builds on another poet's idea by beginning with four lines, as an epigraph, from the poet's poem. In this case, Dawn has been inspired by Irving Layton's "The Fertile Muck." Each of the four stanzas ends with one of the lines of Layton's poem. "Oral Tradition" is a beautifully crafted poem with "two sensibilities mingling," as the late poet P. K. Page said of the glosa. In the poem, the narrator has come to know an emptiness as "fertile / soil that waits for fireweed and milk thistles." "What Do Dreams About Flying Mean" is a pantoum with a particular pattern of line repetition. The first line becomes the last line--or in this case, the title is also the last line. "The poem circles back to its beginning, but with a deeper understanding," says Kate Braid, who mentored Dawn "into" the Creative Writing Department of the University of British Columbia. Dawn credits Braid as one of the several great poets "who did indeed save my life." "How Poetry Saved My Life" is a poem in which Dawn expresses gratitude including for poetry, "The written word can be a further witness/if you've willing to show yourself." Amber Dawn sees putting memories on paper as "an investment in one's self." It took her a while to release her stories and poems into the world, and yet she felt a duty to speak up. We can all be grateful and encouraged that she has. As she writes at the end of "Lying is the Work," one of her personal essays: "When this paragraph ends, this story is all yours." by Mary Ann Moore for Story Circle Book Reviews reviewing books by, for, and about women

Amber Dawn: How Poetry Saved My Life: A Hustler's Memoir A tough life needs tough language – and that is what poetry is. (Jeannette Winterson) Amber Dawn writes her autobiographical novel in a combination of prose and poetry which works wonderfully well. In frank and tough (but never rough) language she tells her story. A story of hustling the streets of Vancouver, sex work, queer identity and survivors pride. Revealing and touching for anyone - like me - not too familiar with the subject. Fortunately poetry and literature were Ambers lifeline in that period. For me she may tell the story of how that came about more in detail in her next novel. Looking forward to it.

Call yourself a feminist? Then you must read Amber Dawn's new book, How Poetry Saved My Life: A Hustler's Memoir. Scratch that. Call yourself a human? Read this book. Immediately. Amber Dawn has written a collection of wry, witty and heartbreaking observations on gender, butch-femme relations, desire and capitalism. Punctuated with finely-wrought poems that illuminate her memoir, How Poetry Saved My Life is full of unexpected gems, both in the muscle of the language and the beauty of the truths she is unafraid to speak. Until Amber Dawn's book, I had never realized the grief associated with lack of mourning rituals in the queer community. It was painful to remember my own dead, the dead that have simply disappeared, without services, without ceremony. The self-proclaimed possessor of "an enterprising pussy," Amber Dawn is also extremely funny. Refusing sentimentality, she maintains a fierce control of how and what she reveals in this memoir. When reading autobiography, I seek work that challenges my own unexamined beliefs and stereotypes, and gives me a window on life experiences outside my own. Amber Dawn delivers all this and more in her unforgettable new memoir.

I read this memoir in one sitting. It's form with poetry and prose served to enrich the reading experience. It's a remarkable piece that resonated v strongly. I was particularly moved by how it captured certain moments and reflected what's behind or underneath moments that many of us may only glimpse in the city. This is no simple confessional memoir it is infused with thinking, intellect and a strong writing style. It is other, a new other that more writers should aspire to.

I read this book over one day. The stories were vivid, well told insights into the authors life. I would highly recommend.

Was expecting more direct references to how poetry saved her life. The poetry itself was wonderful and there was a connection to the prose but I guess I was looking for the author to show me more explicitly how writing saved her or rescued her from the life of a prostitute. That didn't come through. I was left thinking she didn't want to be rescued she needed that life to "make" her be a writer. No pain no gain.

Couldn't get into it.