Richard M. Berlin, MD

Dr Berlin recites poetry that speaks to the relationship between doctor/nurse and a patient, such as 

Videos

Patients rely on the companionship and kindness of nurses now more than ever, and these poem selections reflect that.

Kindness Toward Patients

Listen as Dr Berlin shares his sentiments on how none of us can escape loneliness in these troubling times, and reads some of Maya Angelou's poetry. 

Dr Berlin is instructor in psychiatry, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, MA. 

Maya Angelou’s words remind us to care for and support one another.

Maya Angelou

Dr Berlin recites "Pacemaker," by Barry Sternlieb. 

Navigate the space between fear and love, and lose yourself in heartbeats.

Dr Berlin recites sentiments close to his heart. 

Love in the Time of Coronavirus

I will say healer, priest,
turner of textbook pages,
searcher, listener, arrogant crow
costumed in white, reflecting moon.
My name is scared and foolish
and sometimes too tired to care.
I am death's reluctant lover,
a child's guide, mother, father,
hero and fool,
and if you like it simple,
doctor will do.


 is Instructor in Psychiatry, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester.

Is a doctor a healer, a confidante, a priest or rabbi, a turner of textbook pages, or a combination of all?


On Being a Doctor

Frigid March morning.
I read fresh COVID headlines.
Black ink stains my hands.

The black bear woke up
for his annual trashing
of our bird feeder

while April light warms
snow drops and tilled garden soil
as if nothing’s wrong.

Little granddaughters
shelter safely in our house—
no time for haiku!

Baby Beluga
our COVID-19 soundtrack.
Deep breaths, sing out loud.

Legos own the floor.
Baby screams for mother’s milk.
Earth Day turns fifty.

COVID-19 death—
blue body, tearful intern.
Senior doctor coughs.

Corona commute—
twenty steps to my office
Why am I so tired?

Mother’s Day snow storm—
White flakes on white plum flowers,
the pleasure doubled.

Patient’s face on Zoom—
treatment as usual but
hard to see his heart.

Four therapists on Zoom—
Quiet expert listeners.
I talk much too much.

Three perfect blue eggs.
Three ugly chicks. What did I
think would grow from worms?

No local COVID
deaths for two days! July sky—
Maxfield Parrish blue.

The haiku “COVID-19 death” was first presented as a recording for “Social Distancing, Haiku, and You!” a digital sound collage created by Alan Nakagawa for the Orange County Museum of Art (OCMA). Nakagawa asked participants from around the world to write and digitally record haikus inspired by their own personal experiences during the pandemic. Nakagawa subsequently created a sound collage that interweaves the multitude of voices (around 500) into a single composition.

Articles

Sheltered in Place

I’ve always felt an affinity for Marie Howe because we are both late bloomers when it comes to writing poetry: Howe worked as a newspaper reporter and an English teacher before she devoted any serious attention to writing poetry when she was in her 30s, and I didn’t start writing until my early 40’s.

 was published at the height of the AIDS epidemic. And the title poem is a haunting letter to her brother Johnny who died from an AIDS-related disease. Her poem makes the details of our daily lives sacred, and is just as powerful now as we share the experience of the COVID-19 pandemic. Marie Howe was elected a Chancellor of the 

Johnny, the kitchen sink has been clogged for days, some utensil probably fell down there.
And the Drano won't work but smells dangerous, and the crusty dishes have piled up

waiting for the plumber I still haven't called. This is the everyday we spoke of.
It's winter again: the sky's a deep, headstrong blue, and the sunlight pours through

the open living-room windows because the heat's on too high in here and I can't turn it off.
For weeks now, driving, or dropping a bag of groceries in the street, the bag breaking,

I've been thinking: This is what the living do. And yesterday, hurrying along those
wobbly bricks in the Cambridge sidewalk, spilling my coffee down my wrist and sleeve,

I thought it again, and again later, when buying a hairbrush: This is it.
Parking. Slamming the car door shut in the cold. What you called that yearning.

What you finally gave up. We want the spring to come and the winter to pass. We want
whoever to call or not call, a letter, a kiss—we want more and more and then more of it.

But there are moments, walking, when I catch a glimpse of myself in the window glass,
say, the window of the corner video store, and I'm gripped by a cherishing so deep

for my own blowing hair, chapped face, and unbuttoned coat that I'm speechless:
I am living. I remember you.

The words are no less fitting now than when this piece was written at the height of the AIDS epidemic.

Sacred Daily Lives

-in Norse mythology Valkyries were female figures who decided who would live or die in battle.

she rouses each sleepless post-op patient

their minds blurred from pain and Percocet

I’ve got grits, biscuits, bacon, and ham,

coffee, croissants, and a selection of teas.

So what will it be that you want from Miss Dee?

squint into her sunlight and groan their orders,

is Instructor in Psychiatry, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, MA.

Wake up, arise from the fog, and face a new post-op day.

The Valkyrie

For the Mental Health Minute, I present poems that I hope will have special meaning for all of us as we cope with the COVID-19 crisis.

Why poetry? As former United States poet laureate Kay Ryan said, “It is the job of poetry to remain open to the whole catastrophe.”

Afaa Michael Weaver’s poem, “Losing the 440 Yard Dash” is a glorious coming-of-age poem that gives me a lift from 

every time I read his line, “wondering just what life had to give those of us who can fly.”

The poet was born Michael S. Weaver in Baltimore, in 1951. The son of working-class parents, he attended public schools and graduated as a National Merit finalist at the age of 16. But after 2 years at the University of Maryland, he took a factory job alongside his father and uncles and remained a factory worker for 15 years. 

During this period, he wrote and published poetry, short fiction, and freelance journalism; he also founded a literary journal. He went on to earn many advanced degrees, and became an award-winning poet, playwright, and teacher. Weaver took the name Afaa in 1997, after the death of his first child; the name, given to him by a Nigerian playwright, means “oracle."

If he hits the curve before you do, all is lost
is all I remember when the coach yelled out
to start, to kick it down the short straightaway

into the curve, the curve a devil’s handiwork,
with Worsenski ahead of me, two hundred sixty
pounds, one hundred pounds more than me,

and all I could see were the Converse soles
of a boy I dusted in my dreams on the bus
out here to make the track team, letters

for my sweater, girls going goo-goo over me,
coaches from big-league schools with papers
to say I was headed for glory, my unkempt

disappointment in me now sealed by winged
feet beating me in the curve, Worsenski as big
as the USS 

waters, parting the air in front of him that
sucked back behind just to hold me in my grip
of deep shame until I wished I were not there.

I wanted more than being human, a warrior
of field and track would be bursting out now
ripping open my chest with masculinity

to make Jesse Owens proud or jealous,
or inspired or something other than me
the pulling-up caboose slower than mud

running like an old man really walking,
all the most valuable parts of me inside
my brain in wishes, in dreams, in things

not yet born into the world, in calculations
of beauty, in yearning for love, for the word
of love, for some adoration from Wanda,

the most beautiful girl in the whole block,
black like me and wondering just what
life had to give those of us who can fly.

The Air in Front of Him

I don’t know about you, but one of the unexpected best things to happen during the COVID-19 pandemic was the early release of the filmed version o

The line that gets the strongest audience reaction is shared between Hamilton and Lafayette—"Immigrants—we get the job done."

The hardest working immigrant in my family was my maternal grandfather Murray, whose family fled the pograms of Eastern Europe in the early 20th century and came to America for freedom and the chance to live the American Dream. And his success fueled dreams of success for me, which were an important part of my own inspiration to become doctor.

years later, the Jews are enslaved again,

this time in Galicia, my grandfather fleeing

to America, his earliest memory being down

on his five-year-old knees to kiss Liberty

Island’s earth and thank God for the USA.

Flash forward and “Doc” Emhoff is the first

With a Jersey City office next door to Mayor

Hague’s, he drilled molars for crooked pols

who fixed my driver’s license road test.

decked out in pinstriped suits and a star

sapphire pinky ring, he’d peel off dollar bills

from a wad held by a sterling silver clip

for his first grandson when he placed a doctor’s bag

in my crib, gave me stone skulls for bookends,

taught me to polish dentures in his cluttered lab,

and let me examine ten thousand extracted teeth

he kept in a stack of drawers. The proudest man

at my med school graduation, an immigrant

who spent his life staring into America’s mouth,

the stains and decay, bridges and crowns, the jolt

of his booming voice commanding every citizen

to bite down, grind, smile and open wide,

the way America’s jaws had opened for him.

We come for freedom and the chance to live the American dream.

The Hard-Working Immigrant

From 1976 until her death in 2014, Maxine Kumin lived on a New Hampshire farm where she and her husband Victor bred horses. And her poetry is filled with a fascination for the physical world around her.

She was born in 1925 and received her BA and MA from 

 had 3 children, and in 1957, Kumin studied poetry with John Holmes at the 

 where she met, and became close friends with 

 whose life, poetry, and suicide in 1974 has always been of great interest to psychiatrists.

Kumin enjoyed a long career as a teacher and scholar, and served as Poet Laureate of the United States.

And she was a big baseball fan. Sports have been on hold during COVID-19, and that’s has been a huge loss for many of us. Kumin’s poem “Spring Training” is filled with details about the joys of baseball, including childhood memories I share with her: taping my baseball bat with friction tape, and softening my glove with neats-foot oil. And I love the poem’s last line: “What lingers is the slender hook of hope.” Which is a wonderful thought to hold on to in this summer of COVID-19.

Some things never change: the velvet flock
of the turf, the baselines smoothed to suede,
the ancient smell of peanuts, the harsh smack
the ball makes burrowing into the catcher's mitt.

Here in the Grapefruit League's trellised shade
you catch Pie Traynor's lofting rightfield foul
all over again. You're ten in Fenway Park
and wait past suppertime for him to autograph it

then race for home all goosebumps in the dark
to roll the keepsake ball in paraffin,
soften your secondhand glove with neat's-foot oil
and wrap your Louisville Slugger with friction tape.

The Texas Leaguers, whatever league you're in
still tantalize, the way they waver and drop.
Carl Hubbell's magical screwball is still,
give or take sixty years, unhittable.

Sunset comes late but comes, inexorable.
What lingers is the slender hook of hope.

"Spring Training" by Maxine Kumin, from 

Let spring training not be a mere memory.

Author | Richard M. Berlin, MD

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