Richard M. Berlin, MD

Richard Berlin, MD, shares his journey from medicine to poetry. 

has been writing a poem about his experience of being a doctor every month for the past 23 years in

in a column called “Poetry of the Times.” He is instructor in psychiatry, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, MA.

Videos

How do poetry and medicine interact and relate? One doctor shares his journey. 

An Unexpected Journey: From Medicine to Poetry

Richard Berlin shares poetry from his mentor, poetry editor, and friend, Barry Sterlieb. 

Sternlieb's full poem "Coming of Age" can be found below:

"... unconscious as hope that we sense around us now borne back into the earth..."



Coming of Age

It was the kind of place where boys marched to school
in two straight lines, and not one had heard of Madeline,

a place where phones rang when you hung them up,
and no one knew why, or cared,

a place where fathers were AWOL and mothers begged us
to save their sons, where boys never learned

oceans are saltwater, and teachers met families
only once a year because that was their contract.

It was the kind of place where a year cost as much as four
at Harvard, where a rare student graduated high school,

a place where boys denied belts wore pants hung
on hard-ons while they dreamed of high-top

Chuck Taylor sneakers and NBA stardom,
a place where Maintenance patched potholes

only when the mayor came for his annual inspection,
where shattered dorm windows let Lake Michigan’s

wind pour through in winter, mosquitoes in summer,
a place where the Admin building had A/C, new carpet,

plush leather chairs, and bowls filled with chocolates,
where new Directors were fired after a crisis or two,

the next messiah hired with a new treatment “model”
staff never bothered to follow, a place where workers

smoked with the boys, bribed them with butts, and got memo’d
not to toss garbage from home into campus dumpsters,

a place where staff got arrested as often as the boys,
a few kids returning years later as counselors, their pockets

packed with street cred and love for the youth.
It was the kind of place where boys arrived on Thorazine

and cheeked their pills, where charts were as thick
as the Chicago phone book but missing histories and lab tests

required for treatment, where doctors in training
functioned like five-star generals, but needed Security

to guard them back to their cars, where boys
were just boys crying at night for their mothers,

immortal when they ran over broken glass that glittered
when sun fell on the school’s only playing field.

has been writing a poem about his experience of being a doctor every month for the past 23 years in 

 in a column called “Poetry of the Times.” He is instructor in psychiatry, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, MA.

Articles

Reform school, a place where workers smoked with the boys, a place where fathers were AWOL and mothers begged us to save their sons. 





Psychiatric Residency Rotation

Richard Berlin, MD, shares poetry from James Wright, paralleled by poetry of his own. The full poems can be found below.


The cubs follow that relaxed and beautiful woman


Telepsychiatry makes it easier for psychiatrists to treat patients by eliminating the need for either party to travel, with services provided from the safety and comfort of the psychiatrist’s home.

behind me, circled the rose garden sundial,

A bear under the snow turns over to yawn. It's been a long, hard rest.


Bear Spotting

Richard Berlin, MD, shares the poem "Bridge" by Jim Harrison, and reflects on how we too can study the universe. The full poem can be found below. 

 of my life was spent
building a bridge out over the sea


the resounding crash and moan of the sea,

the hundred-foot depth of the green troughs.

the animal it is, a continent wide and alive.

over which you can hear the lightest music of human

behavior, the tender connection between men and galaxies.

So I sit on the edge, wagging my feet above

the abyss. Tonight the moon will be in my lap.

from my bridge. I have the sky, the sea, the faint

green streak of Canadian forest on the far shore

So I sit on the edge, wagging my feet above the abyss. Tonight the moon will be in my lap...

To Study the Universe

Richard Berlin, MD, shares the poem "When I First Saw Snow" by Gregory Djanikian. Though winter is coming to a close, reflecting on the wintry weather of days past only serves to build excitement for spring. The full poem can be found 

Falling Deeply Into America

Richard Berlin, MD, recites Tony Hoagland's poem, "The Loneliest Job in the World." The full poem can be found 

As soon as you begin to ask the question, Who loves me?, you are completely screwed, because the next question is How Much?


An Accountant of the Heart

Richard Berlin, MD, shares poetry from James Crews, evokingm imagery of the cold weather. The full poem can be found 

"...remember this one life is a gift each of us was handed and told to open..."



Cloudy Eyes, Chapped Lips, Icy Air

 has been writing a poem about his experience of being a doctor every month for the past 23 years in

 in a column called “Poetry of the Times.” He is instructor in psychiatry, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, Massachusetts. 

to twilight, Freud’s bust, the graybeard

But his head is nodding Yes, and I talk—

I loved, books that kidnapped my attention,

and the helpless feeling I’d become a doctor

and still couldn’t save him, the professor

the flash of insight: training had begun.❒

My life pasted on his wall to analyze, a flash of insight came to me: Training had begun.

Psychiatric Residency Interview

 that resonates as we continue the battle against COVID-19. 

roots
by Lucille Clifton

call it our craziness even,
call it anything.
it is the life thing in us
that will not let us die.
even in death's hand
we fold the fingers up
and call them greens and
grow on them,
we hum them and make music.
call it our wildness then,
we are lost from the field
of flowers, we become
a field of flowers.
call it our craziness
our wildness
call it our roots,
it is the light in us
it is the light of us
it is the light, call it
whatever you have to,
call it anything.

 “...the life thing in us that will not let us die...”


Richard M. Berlin, MD

Articles

An Unexpected Journey: From Medicine to Poetry

Coming of Age

Psychiatric Residency Rotation

Bear Spotting

To Study the Universe

Falling Deeply Into America

An Accountant of the Heart

Cloudy Eyes, Chapped Lips, Icy Air

Psychiatric Residency Interview

The Life Thing In Us