Anawim Arts is excited to launch our first book of poetry, written by one their founding members, Karen Hurley Kuchar. Karen passed away from pancreatic cancer in the fall of 2023. During her cancer experience, she wrote a moving collection of poems, under the title How to Live While Dying, now available through Amazon. With Karen’s family, Anawim Arts is honored to share this collection of poems as their first published book.
“This time in my life has brought an astonishing richness along with pain and despair. These poems are my attempt to tell about it.”—Karen Hurley Kuchar
Praise for How to Live While Dying
Wise and incisive, How to Live While Dying meditates on big questions without forgetting to linger on the tiniest, tenderest details. (SHELBY VAN PELT | New York Times best selling author of Remarkably Bright Creatures)
How to Live While Dying is like a prayer that touches you wherever you are in your life. (NANCY SYLVESTER, IHM | Author of Journey-Faith in an Entangled World)
[Karen Kuchar’s] eloquent narrative reminds us that within life’s uncertainty, “there is sorrow and joy, weariness and strength, and power in beauty” — a truth that lingers long after the final page. (DEBORAH L. VENEZIA | Director, Arts DuPage)
How uplifting to hear Karen’s voice in these intimate words she shared about the many loves in her life. These poems are a reminder of the preciousness of life…as well as an inspiring understanding of how our views change when facing death. Familiar, introspective, loving. (ROBERT LEE FRITZ | Artist, Free Blown Glass)
From How to Live While Dying (Karen Kuchar):
FLOW
I want to be a river
not a reservoir
A reservoir saves
for the day when
nothing is given
stores up against want
But there is no need
to dam the water
to fear the dry spell
A river trusts the flow
of a generous alchemy of gifts
received and given afresh
every day
in moments
large and small
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Questions? Reach out to Anawim Arts (anawimarts@gmail.com).
