Hustling Verse
An Anthology of Sex Workers' Poetry
In this trailblazing anthology, more than fifty self-identified sex workers from all walks of the industry (survival and trade, past and present) explore their lived experience through the expressive nuance and beauty of poetry. In a variety of forms ranging from lyrics to list poems to found poetry to hybrid works, these authors express themselves with the complexity, agency, and honesty that sex workers are rarely afforded. Contributors from Canada, the US, Europe, and Asia include Gregory Scofield, Tracy Quan, Summer Wright, and Akira the Hustler. As an antidote to the invasive and often biased media depictions of sex workers, Hustling Verse is a fiercely groundbreaking exploration of intimacy, transactional sex, identity, healing, and resilience.
Includes a foreword by Mercedes Eng, whose poetry book Prison Industrial Complex Explodes (Talonbooks) won the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize in 2018.
Contributors
Amber Dawn
Amber Dawn, ed. is the author of the novels Sodom Road Exit (2018) and Sub Rosa (winner of a Lambda Literary Award, 2010), the Vancouver Book Award-winning memoir How Poetry Saved My Life (2013), the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize-nominated poetry collection Where the words end and my body begins (2015). She is also editor of Fist of the Spider Woman: Tales of Fear and Queer Desire and co-editor of With a Rough Tongue: Femmes Write Porn. She teaches creative writing at Douglas College in Vancouver, and also leads several low-barrier community writing classes.
Justin Ducharme
Justin Ducharme, ed. is a filmmaker, writer, dancer and curator from the small Métis community of St. Ambroise on Treaty 1 Territory. He is a graduate from Vancouver Film School, and the writer/director of three short narrative films. He has been jigging since the age of 7, performing with The St. Ambroise Youth Steppers and the Louis Riel Métis Dancers. His poetry has been featured in Sex Worker Wisdom and PRISM International magazine. He currently lives and works on Unceded Coast Salish Territory.
