Eva Saulitis

Coming to terms with a Stage 4 breast cancer diagnosis, in large part by writing and by immersion in the natural world after learning that chemotherapy treatment stopped working.

When breast cancer comes back, it is incurable; it is terminal. What is healing, what is spring, in that context? What is hope? Spring is not an end-point; neither is fall. They are part of a round.

If each poem in the latest issue of AQR is partly an answer to the question “What the hell is poetry, anyway?” there are six wildly unique responses from poets with a connection to Alaska.

Death is nature. Nature is far from over. In the end — I must believe it — just like a salmon, I will know how to die, and though I die, though I lose my life, nature wins. Nature endures.