Saint Agnostica: Poems

by Anya Krugovoy Silver

Saint Agnostica is the final work of Anya Krugovoy Silver, a poet celebrated for her incisive writing about illness, motherhood, and Christian faith. The poems in this collection dance between opposite poles of joy and grief, community and isolation, humor and anger, belief and doubt, in moving and devastating witness to a life lived with strength and resolve.

Genres: Poetry

78 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 1, 2021

About the author

Anya Krugovoy Silver was an American poet. She was named Georgia Author of the Year/Poetry for 2015. Silver was recently named a Guggenheim Fellow for Poetry for 2018. She taught in the English Department at Mercer University in Macon, Georgia.

Reviews

[Brigitte · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a phenomenal collection of poems. I can’t believe she’s gone. A talent taken from us far too soon.

[Alex Joyner · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolutely devastating book that pulls no punches. Raw, real, and soulful. The poet took her artistry all the way to the end of her life and beyond.

[Joseph · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a book that I will not return even as my bookshelves are overflowing with books I cherish, books I must read, and a reminder that I should create a space for books that must always be visible to highlight the necessity of entering into communion with others who will eventually pass, as we will one day, into the earth. These poems face metastatic breast cancer directly knowing that its author will eventually succumb to it, writing in "Being Ill," "There is no heroism to it./ Like getting dressed in the morning,/...There's no bravery in habit./...Fate drops me in my life and I land./ It's the only way I know to survive."

Because of her diminished life expectancy, Silver "...no longer waste(s) time on books/ that don't wrestle with angels,/ leaving (her) fingers bruised/ (Reading Poetry in Illness)", because as she is sitting in room receiving chemotherapy she notices how fewer and fewer of the people she got to know are still there--"With every death, the room I sit in empties./ The curtains, the rug, the lamp, the loveseat./ Now it's just me in my favorite chair, with no one to talk to... (Disappearances)"

Yet despite the physical and psychological grief from such an unrepentant illness like cancer that "...removes the knives from his sack,/ with which he will extract the organs/ from your body, one by one, (Hunted)" she writes with such ferocity and courage that her poetry supersedes the foreboding anxiety so that she achieves something that all the best doctors and medicine couldn't-- finally putting cancer into remission. Yes, it cruelly took her body but it could not defeat her voice which lives on in these god damn beautiful, daring, exquisite, fearless poems.

[Kristy · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Vivian · Rating 5 out of 5]

A privilege to read. Stunning and devastating

[Sarah M. Wells · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful.

[Francescajemm]

Simply. Gorgeous. These poems are both exquisitely crafted and universally accessible. I can't stop rereading them.

[Hannah Tucker-Flarity · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve read this one four times now. A phenomenal collection.

[Michaela · Rating 4 out of 5]

*4.5

[Cameron Brooks · Rating 5 out of 5]

Uff da.

[John Adams · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tightly focused on imminent death, and at times despairing, but a nonetheless impressive collection.

[Patricia N. McLaughlin · Rating 5 out of 5]

“I knew it would hurt God just one bit to watch me die.” —Anya Krugovoy Silver, “Metastatic”

CROW’S FUNERAL
When I die, throw me a crow’s funeral.
No eulogy, no poems or psalms.
Leave behind the candles and hymns,
the hypnotic chants at vespers,
the bound and hammered hands of Christ.
Let the company assemble outside,
bare-headed beneath the sky,
weeds and dirt the only altar cloths,
the dying oak, still rooted in the soil,
casting a chuppah for the Shekinah.
Cluster, beloveds, around my urn.
Then, in turn, mimic the outraged
cries of crows, their shrieks for the dead.
Scream until alarmed birds rise,
bowing a black shroud, a rent,
a tent to accept my soul.

Favorite Poems:
“Brain Scan on Yom Kippur”
“Stray Elk in Eglise Saint-Eustache
“You and I Are Earth”
“Poem for Dr. —-“
“Costly Love”
“Amazement”
“National Radio Quiet Zone”
“Unfinished”
“Metastatic”
“Crow’s Funeral”

[Jon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Saint Agnostica is Anya Krugovoy Silver's last book. She is an award-winning poet with 5 of her own collections and contributions to other publishing venues. A friend of mine so strongly suggested this one that is bought it straightaway. It is captivating and soul-wrenching. These poems should be read slowly, each 2 or 3 times before trying the next one. She wrote these in the year she was dying, from a rugged form of breast cancer, I could only read 2 or 3 at a sitting. I commend this book to you.

[Debbie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Haunting, sad and so true.

[Starly Pratt · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a beautiful collection that pays attention to the heartbreak and doubt that constantly circles around a life of faith. Some of the poems are not as polished likely due to the fact the collection was found in manuscript after the authors death, however I hardly cared because they were still so beautiful and poignant.

[Jake Watts · Rating 4 out of 5]

beautiful and challenging final testament

powerful, and humbling. a beautiful and challenging final testament. A guy-punch of a reminder of the shortness, beauty and pain of life; and the necessity to truly live …