Award-winning author of poetry: Buzzkill Clamshell is Amber Dawn’s follow-up book to five books published with Arsenal Pulp: Sub Rosa (2010), Lambda Literary Award winner; How Poetry Saved My Life: A Hustler’s Memoir (2013), Vancouver Book Award winner; Where the words end and my body begins (2015), BC Book Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize finalist; Sodom Road Exit (2018), Lambda Literary Award finalist and Sunburst Award for Excellence in Canadian Literature of the Fantastic finalist; My Art Is Killing Me and Other Poems (2020), Jim Deva Prize for Writing that Provokes finalist. Themes of chronic illness, queerness, and sexuality: In Amber Dawn’s words: “Buzzkill Clamshell stomps its way through themes of chronic pelvic pain and complex PTSD, queer aging and perversion. The verse employs hyperbole, persona, dark fantasy and mythical allusion as approaches to personal storytelling that circumvent the conventions of so-called confessional poetry, while still remaining unflinchingly personal.” Poetic forms combined with erotic imagery: According to Amber Dawn, “these traditional poetic forms are paired with graphically erotic diction and imagery to queer or burlesque form, and to create jarring juxtapositions between form and content. Additionally, traditional forms are used to demonstrate that perverse content is worthy of elegant pattern and musicality.”
