Anya Krugovoy Silver, a Media native and poet who wrote about dealing with advanced breast cancer, has died at the age of 49, writes Richard Sandomir for The New York Times.

Silver, who was born in Media and grew up in Swarthmore, graduated from Haverford College. Nine years ago, she was diagnosed with a particularly rare and aggressive type of breast cancer, while pregnant and working as a literature teacher at Mercer University in Macon, Ga.

Soon after she gave birth, she had a mastectomy, which inspired her poetry. She wrote with complete candor about living with the fear of death and her love for her husband and child.

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Prior to her illness, her poems published in literary journals explored love, womanhood, religion, and spirituality. All of those concerns were magnified after she was diagnosed.

“My poetry got better,” Silver said at the time. “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.”

Read more about Anya Krugovoy Silver in The New York Times by clicking here.

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