Richard M. Berlin, MD

"...we came in peace for all mankind. Then returned to continue the war."

The Gerald F. Berlin Creative Writing Award is rewarding future doctors and poets alike.

"To what purpose, April, do you return again?"

"When I was nineteen and still had time, I worked college breaks in my father’s factory, and let sweet leather’s smell soak into my skin..."

"You know, now that anything can happen, it’s hard to know what will, and what will you do now that you know?"

"And then he stepped back, straightened his hat, let me sweat my own decision."

"The clock just ticked minute 41, and Annie, just as you predict, my attention is wandering, even if I haven’t hit Step 3: Make the reader feel something is at stake, which I’ll have to focus on in my revision."

"...My mother like a distantly spilled perfume."

"I am her book of poems and it is I."

"Always the light falls. Softly down on the hair of my belovèd."

“Step 1: put your butt in a chair for 45 minutes every day and get down a shitty draft.”

Here's a thank you note to all the musicians.

"Pain can't touch me no more, For I am free, I am free, I am free..."

"But Who am I kidding? The weekend was about Basketball."

"All anyone wants to know is when spring will get here..."

"...they’ve returned like songbirds, exhausted from flight but wild to swagger the songs they carry..."

"...so close that your emissions of carbon are mine, so close your sea rises with my heat.”

"...barriers that create space for healing placed close enough to hear everyone’s cries of longing and love..."

"Before you know what kindness really is you must lose things..."

"He manages like somebody carrying a box that is too heavy, first with his arms underneath..."

"...barriers that create space for healing placed close enough to hear everyone’s cries of longing and love..."

"...Love can't block a bullet, but neither can it be shot down..."

"And with one slow blink my reality shifts..."

".... I’m consigned to wait while the baby gets an injection..."

"...But tonight I’m twenty years and two hundred leagues from the sea, her painting suddenly a family portrait—weather-beaten me in the middle with worried-window-eyes..."

"I love you as one loves certain obscure things, secretly, between the shadow and the soul..."

"Back in the 70’s, before I knew my own voice, I listened to yours..."

"... when winds spread the word and brown fields bristle like dense fur down the back of the earth..."

"Forever you find your father in other faces..."

"Before I knew my own voice, I listened to yours while we learned our trades..."