Second Bloom

“At the heart of these new poems is a longstanding determination to make the most of time, and of mind, and of the immediate surround—whether that immediacy is comprised of grief, or of joy, or of perplexity. The deep, bass note here is attend! The developing hunger is holiness.”


—Scott Cairns, author of Slow Pilgrim: The Collected Poems





“‘To bloom is so foolish / that it must be wisdom,’ Anya Silver writes, in poem after stunning poem about living with cancer and still finding words to praise this beautiful and ephemeral world. These are the bravest poems you’ll ever read, by a woman at the top of her artistic game. Even though she knows that winter is coming, Silver’s words put out fresh green shoots. These poems will crack open your heart.”


—Barbara Crooker, author of Les Fauves and Barbara Crooker: Selected Poems





“In lines saturated with colors and delicious with sneaky rhymes, in elegies and ekphrastic poems, in liturgical poems and hymns to ordinary things in ordinary time—a slinky green dress, a son’s light-brown hair, a grape popsicle on the tongue after days of hospital fasting—Silver gives us life’s pain met time and again with pleasure and feast, rather than with despair. Although ‘the roses in second bloom / know what’s coming,’ they bloom nonetheless. To read this book is to witness Silver seeking, and finding, holiness around every corner.”


—Melissa Range, author of Scriptorium and Horse and Rider





“Underneath the bees and birds and blossoms of this fine collection, Anya Krugovoy Silver reveals the stings and flights of joy—the transience of this our life and the tender hope of a life to come. Her eye and ear find beauty in the darkest places. To read her is to know firsthand the meaning of the word redemption.”


—Paul J. Willis, author of Say This Prayer into the Past