Poetry

"Just like moons and like suns, With the certainty of tides, Just like hopes springing high, Still I'll rise..."

"Fifteen seconds, thirty, a minute of silence, sweat weeps from the intern’s forehead..."

This heartfelt tribute poem to Dr Jessica Obeysekare celebrates her passion, empathy, and dedication in both life and academia.

“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Explore the transformative power of self-compassion through poetry, mentorship, and shared humanity in overcoming doubt and anxiety.

"As Saint Francis put his hand on the creased forehead of the sow, and told her in words and in touch blessings of earth on the sow..."

"White roses, tiny and old, flare among thorns by the barn door..."

"As my daughter and I rehearse for the interview, I assure her no one asked me the cookie question..."

A psychiatrist thoughts for Father's Day.

"Maybe the question is a test to uncover applicants who crumble under pressure, or a tactic to learn how much dough the future doctor hopes to earn..."

"It all depends on the child’s arrival..."

"The jackrabbit is a mild herbivore grazing the desert floor, quietly abridging spring..."

"There are a million birds in this city I hadn’t heard till now, each of them tuning their instruments, each of them singing, I am alive."

"I feel I’ve known him a long time, familiar as red in the maple outside or the smell of leather on my father’s skin..."

Check out this year's Gerald F. Berlin Prize winner!

"And I feel closer to him than 50 minutes should allow, a puzzled sensation, I’ve known him all my life..."

"He says that even when he’s driving to the mall in his Isuzu Trooper with a gang of his friends, letting rap music pour over them Like a boiling Jacuzzi full of ballpeen hammers, even then he feels Buried alive, captured and suffocated in the folds Of the thick satin quilt of America.."

"The moon used to be on Zoloft, before trying Prozac, before adding Klonopin to her lunar chemistry."

"That life is real and if you can survive it, well, survive it well with love and art and meaning given where meaning’s scarce."

"All morning I did the work I love. At noon I lay down with my mate. It might have been otherwise."

"Tell him I’m sorry I still owe him money..."

"$240. 47-year-old insurance salesman, depressed, alcoholic came in eight times, once with his wife."

"Doctors in their lonely rounds, Poets with their sacred sounds, Human kindness that abounds shout, nothing stops the spring."

"Was this what Rome felt like toward the end? When the colosseums filled with gladiators stirred the masses into a frenzy."

"All redeeming Nature knows, You cannot stop the spring."

A psychiatrist reflects on the challenges we weather and the enduring search for hope and unity.

"Any decent realtor, walking you through a real shithole, chirps on about good bones: This place could be beautiful, right? You could make this place beautiful."

"I guessed heart failure. The answer was pneumonia."

"I stood by her side, stunned when her breathing stopped..."