Anya Krugovoy Silver, a poet who, "after receiving a diagnosis of advanced breast cancer in 2004, wrote lyrical verse that gave readers an exquisite, intimate and sometimes angry account of her illness," died August 6, the New York Times reported. She was 49. Silver was pregnant and teaching English literature at Mercer University in Macon when she learned that she had the disease. "She gave birth to her only child, Noah; had a mastectomy; and discovered the intensity with which cancer inspired her poetry." From her poem "Stage IV":
Faces turn away from me--I'm taboo, now--
the boat I'm set inside is crowded
with others like myself--
they come from their own cities.
Cautiously, we take each other's hands
and trade stories.
Silver published four volumes of poetry: The Ninety-Third Name of God (2010), I Watched You Disappear (2014), from nothing (2016) and Second Bloom (2017).
In a 2010 interview with Macon magazine, she said that after her diagnosis, "My poetry got better. Nothing focuses your mind and helps you see clearly what's important quite like cancer. It made me want to explore, even more, the beauty and divinity of the ordinary world."
"She continued to write until her final days--in longhand, as always, and in a journal," the Times noted, adding that "in 'Metastatic,' she described a seething rage that made her want to 'scream until the scream knocks me to my knees.' " The poem concludes:
I have nothing to lose.
If you push me off a building, I'll sing.
I'd jump in front of a bullet if I could.
I'd let someone wring my neck if only
I knew it would hurt God just one bit to watch me die.