Writing Poetry Can Endanger Your Health - Part Sixteen by Dave Jaffe : The Poet as Lesbian.

         Amber Dawn - The Poet As Lesbian


    She has been a prostitute and a substance abuser. She was and is a lesbian. To-day she is an acclaimed poet who has won many prizes. Amber Dawn grew up in the border town of Fort Erie, Ontario. It was right near Niagara Falls.
    "In some border towns anything goes," one former resident of an Ontario border town told me. In any case Amber Dawn had some adventures before she got out of Fort Erie, by signing up with a carnival.
     Through one means or another, she ended up in Vancouver's downtown eastside. "It's the poorest postal code in Canada," the media always say about this district. Still, these days, the rising tide of condos, hip bars and upscale restaurants are slowly wiping out this district's past. Many of its former residents are scattering eastward up the Fraser Valley to cities like Abbotsford and Chilliwack.
     When Dawn arrived in the area illegal drugs, alcohol, and rough times mixed together in what was sometimes a dangerous zone of life. For this was the place where serial killers like Robert Pickton hung out, stalking and then killing prostitutes.
     Dawn worked the streets of the downtown eastside looking for male clients. At times she found customers from escort companies that hired out prostitutes, as she was for a time. Her poetry is full of her experiences. The words she uses can sometimes shock the innocent, if that is, there's any innocent people left around. Yet Amber Dawn hides little about her life and times. Of course, lesbians aren't anything new in the world of poetry. 
      The Greek poet Sappho of Lesbos wrote poetry over 2600 years ago, and her poems were often directed to women.
      "The moon has set ... Middle of the night," wrote Sappho
      Time passes
       And I lie here alone."

     The word 'lesbian' comes from the island of Lesbos where Sappho lived for a time.
    Then there was Edna St. Vincent Millay, an American poet who wrote love poetry to women. Yet Amber Dawn is something new in the world of poetry. Her rough and sometimes frank poetry hides  nothing about her life on the streets or in between the sheets.
    Four letter words abound in her verses as does sometimes a joy focused on her life. You can get a good sample of her verse and her thoughts in her book 'Where the Words End, And My Body Begins'.
Amber Dawn is another game changer in the world of poetry.