Cancer is a son of a bitch. Affecting all walks of life and age groups, this terrible illness often strikes with no rhyme or reason, and while there are many causes of cancer, it will still come for the healthy.
This is the world singer-songwriter Alysia Kraft and her wife, the former Poet Laureate Ally Eden, find themselves in after Eden was diagnosed with stage four cancer. Chatting via Zoom with me from a hospital in Denver, theirs are the faces recognizable to anyone who has witnessed a loved one go through the struggle of treatment. Tired but not broken; worn down but not submitting; Kraft and Eden face the reality of their new “normal,” which means setting aside much of their old lives.
Prior to the cancer diagnosis, both Kraft and Eden were working artists extremely active in the northern Colorado arts community. On top of being a former Poet Laureate of Fort Collins, Eden taught poetry and worked as a translator, while Kraft has been a pillar of the music scene. Kraft’s work with her solo project as well as bands like Patti Fiasco has made her one of the most magnetic and sought-after artists in northern Colorado.
It is in this place the two made a life for themselves. Both sober, active and healthy, the two scratched out a living doing what they love and expressing themselves along the way. Both of their trajectories were climbing fast, then the bad news came. “I was diagnosed in September of last year and it just came out of the blue with no real symptoms,” said Eden. “I just had a stomach ache that wouldn’t go away and it turned out to be stage four cancer, and that’s sort of where it all began.”
Seemingly overnight everything stopped for them. Eden began treatment and the couple cancelled all plans and events for the foreseeable future.
And it is in the shadow of all of this that Kraft and Eden produced and released a new EP titled I Love You Lifetimes. Then on Aug. 16, they released Eden’s first book of poetry, called Bone Stacked Oak. “The EP was a really sweet process. Some of the things we created prior to this time period just existed in a love letter format,” said Kraft.
The idea came around Eden’s birthday after Kraft wrote two songs for her as a gift. “I had written some poems, and so we were like, how can we mesh these, or where do these inspire each other?” said Eden.
For Eden and Kraft, what started as a fun project to express their love for each other turned into so much more as the struggle set in. “The timing of it with our anniversary coming up and given the cancer diagnosis, there was something beautiful in the idea of having an homage to the shape of our relationship in its totality, not just the chapter that we’re in right now,” said Eden.
Following the EP, the next step was to get Eden’s book of poetry out into the world. The process for this was rolling well before the diagnosis but the shift in priorities put aspects of it in limbo. With years of releasing music under her belt, Kraft saw an avenue to be useful.
“I finally feel like I have some skills that I can contribute to this situation,” said Kraft. “I am not an oncologist but I wish I was. I’ve released a lot of albums and I know how to project-manage something like that. So I’ve been helping on that side of things and we’re getting really excited about this book existing.”
With the book and EP officially released, Kraft and Eden have settled into the routine of doctors visits and chemotherapy treatments. With this comes a lot of reflection on where the art fits for them now. Where they were once out experiencing life and hunting for inspiration, they now spend a lot of their time in a sterile hospital room. This has shifted how they both approach their art and where it sits in their list of priorities.
“I was really drawn to music by lyrics, like lyrics that make you feel less alone in something,” said Kraft. “I kind of got away from that for a little while because I was really working on my production chops. And now I’m desperate, like starving for a poem that makes me feel understood, you know?”
For Eden, the shift in perspective showed her the importance of sharing what we’re good at with the world. “I think that maybe a lesson that cancer is teaching is why wait?” said Eden. “I’m so glad for the things I didn’t wait for in my life. And I don’t regret any of that so why wait to put art out? It’s a gift. If you have that gift, you have to give it to the world.”
“Stop editing it to death,” said Kraft.
Kraft and Eden are looking ahead one day at a time. For Eden it is facing the hill of chemotherapy and treatment, and for Kraft it is the struggle of trying to provide comfort and relieve whatever burden she can. There is no grand marketing strategy for the EP. Following a lovingly received book release party at Wolverine Farms in Ft. Collins, the work now is done in hospital rooms and around Eden’s immune system schedule. But of all the lessons to be learned from this experience, the most important is that when you love someone and they love you back, no hill has to be climbed alone.
