Author: burkak1971
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Storage Spaces
It’s early Wednesday morning. I wait for my teenagers to be dressed and ready, so I can drive them to school. I sit on my couch and look around the room. Surrounded by books, magazines, old comics, raincoats, clay figurines from third-grade art class, pictures, shoes, a pile of unread New York Times Magazines, even…
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SNAPDRAGON LIVE: Benefit Open Mic for Snapdragon & Living Beyond Breast Cancer
On Sunday, June 4 from 2:00-4:00 pm EST, I will host SNAPDRAGON LIVE, a virtual open mic for those impacted by breast cancer. Bring your story or poem of healing. Bring your story of rage. Bring your story of unexpected grief, joy, or kindness. Come to support a friend or family member. Come to listen.…
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Anne Boyer’s The Undying: A Poet’s Novel About Breast Cancer
“Breast cancer is a disease that presents itself as a disordering question of form” (7) begins Anne Boyer’s 2020 Pulitzer Prize-winning The Undying: Pain, Vulnerability, Mortality, Medicine, Art, Time, Dreams, Data, Exhaustion, Cancer and Care. An essayist and poet, Boyer has written an emotionally and intellectually challenging novel about her diagnosis at 41 with triple-negative…
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National Poetry Month: When Breast Cancer & Poetry Meet
Happy National Poetry Month! To celebrate, on Saturday, April 1, 2023, I became the Montgomery County Poet Laureate (MCPL). I am honored, thrilled, and humbled to be chosen for this, especially given the field of awesome finalists. Over the next year, I will share my poetry with a wider audience, become part of a larger…
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Overexpressed Asks: A Series Featuring the Voices of MBC
Last fall when I needed to make an difficult decision about my next line of treatment, I connected with AMELIA O’RELLY. Wonderfully warm and supportive, she opened up to me about her MBC journey and what her life is like on Enhertu. Making difficult decisions about cancer care is one of the many challenges of…
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Overexpressed Asks: A Series Featuring the Voices of MBC
Overexpressed Asks is honored to feature MARY KATZKE. Recently, we connected via Zoom and chatted about living with MBC, mothering, practicing yoga, writing, reading books, and being a part of Living Beyond Breast Cancer. MARY KATZKE has more than forty years of progressive, nonprofit media creation using documentary film, photography, screenwriting and social media to…
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The Revolutionary Art of Maintenance
Currently, I am reading Eula Biss’ deliciously thoughtful Having and Being Had, which traces the roots of our assumptions about wealth, work and property, and reveals the ways in which capitalism is inculcated and internalised. One of my favorite creative nonfiction writers, Biss likes to write about her firsts. When her first child was born,…
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Return to Sender
One day James McGrath arrives at my house. Out of nowhere, his name begins to show up next to mine on a subscription label and solicitation letter to a journal I have subscribed to for years. Because my name is also on the envelope, I am technically not breaking the law when I open up…
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A Cancer Vacation: What Your Nervous System Needs This Holiday Season
Many years ago, my cancer counselor asked, “What happens if you take a vacation from cancer?” A vacation from cancer? He must have been kidding. How does someone who lives with MBC take a vacation from cancer? Then, one of my very wise teachers reflected that when you have cancer, your body is always in…
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HGTV: Every Story Has a Happy Ending
At my cancer center–a 500,000-square foot, state-of-the-art building which boasts an estimated 300,000 patients a year–all waiting room television channels are tuned to Home & Garden Television, better known as HGTV. It does not matter what time of day or which department I am in, the television blissfully blares shows like Home Town, featuring Erin…
Overexpressed 