Post by laurenno116 on May 31, 2013 21:48:58 GMT -5
Anya Krugovoy Silver grew up in an atmosphere made to breed a poet - one filled with literature, philosophy, politics, and religion. Her “mother wove a ribbon of poetry into [her] braids… as doorways for images.” The first poem she ever wrote was in the fourth grade, “Snowflakes,” and even then, the musing of an object or reflection of an experience inspired Silver to write. She writes with impeccable accessibility, drawing from subjects personal to her. She says that she loves “that poetry is like a dragnet that can pick up all sorts of material and refashion it,” and she takes that to heart as she finds the transcendent in ordinary places – the laundry room, the hospital, a candle sitting on the kitchen window.
Diagnosed with Stage III Inflammatory Breast Cancer while she was pregnant with her son, a majority of Silver’s works is deeply rooted in her illness. Her cancer became what Emily Dickinson refers to as a “flood subject.” Upon beginning treatment, Silver began to write even more as a way to control her fear and as she says, “explore the metaphysical questions that suffering raises.” There is “no one better than a woman with cancer to pin like a drafting compass at the center of your poem.” She examines her illness as a gift “because when your body bruises and softens, you are perfected.” However she does not shy away from lamentation as her “throat grows hoarse with the names of those who have perished.” And yet her work is not monopolized by her illness.
Raised in the Russian Orthodox Church, Silver has a deep connection to her religion, which reveals itself in many of her works. “Crouching in bathrooms” and in “the delicate cycle in which lace and wool can eddy” Silver finds God. She seeks comfort in “Our God, Ruler of the universe” and the customs of “the smudge on each forehead.” She utilizes her writing as a way to further her own relationship with God as her “faithfulness is played out in these knotted, dreaming bodies” of poetry.
“Still loving the mess and tawdriness of life,” Silver does not seek happiness solely in writing. She will come to “hate [her] own poems, read them as pretty wisps of wishful thinking” as she takes on the challenging roles of wife, mother, and teacher. However with finding out that her cancer is incurable, Silver questions whether or not her “life might well be over in a year, maybe two." She deals with this reality, she says, by teaching and “hoping to instill in my students the transformative love of the written word and the search for beauty and truth that makes us human.”
Although it is also through her own poetry that Silver teaches these lessons. She finds magnificence in the most ordinary of places, opening your eyes to a new perspective, but she never lets you take “refuge in stories and souls,” instead of the truth. She is always there “reminding us of sleep, of calm, of everything we desire and lose and hope to recover that’s peaceful, and tender, and mild.” I thank Anya Krugovoy Silver for her poetry, which meant a lot to me personally. Now, please join me in welcoming Anya Krugovoy Silver as Westfield High School’s 2013 visiting poet.
Word Count: 547
Diagnosed with Stage III Inflammatory Breast Cancer while she was pregnant with her son, a majority of Silver’s works is deeply rooted in her illness. Her cancer became what Emily Dickinson refers to as a “flood subject.” Upon beginning treatment, Silver began to write even more as a way to control her fear and as she says, “explore the metaphysical questions that suffering raises.” There is “no one better than a woman with cancer to pin like a drafting compass at the center of your poem.” She examines her illness as a gift “because when your body bruises and softens, you are perfected.” However she does not shy away from lamentation as her “throat grows hoarse with the names of those who have perished.” And yet her work is not monopolized by her illness.
Raised in the Russian Orthodox Church, Silver has a deep connection to her religion, which reveals itself in many of her works. “Crouching in bathrooms” and in “the delicate cycle in which lace and wool can eddy” Silver finds God. She seeks comfort in “Our God, Ruler of the universe” and the customs of “the smudge on each forehead.” She utilizes her writing as a way to further her own relationship with God as her “faithfulness is played out in these knotted, dreaming bodies” of poetry.
“Still loving the mess and tawdriness of life,” Silver does not seek happiness solely in writing. She will come to “hate [her] own poems, read them as pretty wisps of wishful thinking” as she takes on the challenging roles of wife, mother, and teacher. However with finding out that her cancer is incurable, Silver questions whether or not her “life might well be over in a year, maybe two." She deals with this reality, she says, by teaching and “hoping to instill in my students the transformative love of the written word and the search for beauty and truth that makes us human.”
Although it is also through her own poetry that Silver teaches these lessons. She finds magnificence in the most ordinary of places, opening your eyes to a new perspective, but she never lets you take “refuge in stories and souls,” instead of the truth. She is always there “reminding us of sleep, of calm, of everything we desire and lose and hope to recover that’s peaceful, and tender, and mild.” I thank Anya Krugovoy Silver for her poetry, which meant a lot to me personally. Now, please join me in welcoming Anya Krugovoy Silver as Westfield High School’s 2013 visiting poet.
Word Count: 547