I am not the world's best poetry reader, but this collection by Anya Krugovoy Silver, published just after her death from metastatic breast cancer, was a book I relished -- reading each poem a few times and letting them wash over me. She writes beautifully about the anger, hope, exhaustion, and love that surround her life with cancer, but equally as strong are her poems about her evolving faith and her relationship to God ("Saint Agnositica," the title poem, is a particularly great one), as well as her experience as a mother, a daughter, and a poet. I want to quote about half the poems here -- her phrasing and imagery are astounding -- but I'll stick to one, "Being Ill" which put words to some of my own feelings about the everydayness of a lifelong illness: "There's no heroism to it. / Like getting dressed in the morning, / it's just practice: force my head past the collar, / squiggle to pull up the zipper / behind my back, slither into tights / and distinguish blue pumps from black. / I pour the cereal in my bowl the same way / each morning because that's how it's done -- / life, the whole scribbled mess of it. / There's no bravery in habit. / Even waiting for the doctor to arrive, / knowing she's holding scan results, / requires no striving, no grand strength. / I'm just a limp sock in a dog's mouth, / Fate drops me in my life and I land. / It's the only way I know to survive." And I'm not going to quote the whole thing, but seek out "Metastatic" for its beautiful and powerful anger. Actually, just buy the whole book -- this is a great one. ( )