The kind of cancer I had—a non-hormonal breast cancer in a young-ish woman—was historically specific to the 21st century carcinogenosphere. The world had made me ill, then it made serious illness impossible—not enough money, not enough leave from work, not enough care. My friends—many of them poets—had to patchwork a form in which to care for me in a world in which single mothers who work for a living did not fit into the scheme of care, except as the people who provided it.

Source: What Undiscovered Countries Are Then Disclosed : Anne Boyer : Harriet the Blog : The Poetry Foundation