SPOTLIGHT -
February 7th 2025
"When she steps onto the front porch, sun shimmies through the tips of her hair, the V of her legs, fans out like wings under her arms..."
February 5th 2025
Explore the theme of mortality and the fleeting nature of time in a poem inspired by Stoic philosophy and personal reflection.
January 31st 2025
"No matter, Hattie: It’s a long, beautiful walk into that flower-smothered standing ovation, so go on and make them wait."
January 24th 2025
"What did I know, what did I know of love’s austere and lonely offices?"
January 17th 2025
"In my poem, says another, I can forget I am forgotten. Now I understand being misunderstood..."
Shirt
"The buttonholes, the sizing, the facing, the characters. Printed in black on neckband and tail. The shape, the label, the labor, the color, the shade. The shirt."
Craving
"...seeking and longing for the garden of cherry blossoms..."
Timely
A psychiatrist reflects on the importance of time... and living in the moment.
Good Fathers
"We were three men alone in a ward room built for fifty, dust film on the floor..."
Eye-Popping
"I can smell the aroma of spring tulips filling the air-spreading peace and good cheer..."
Greenhouse
"For we are a healing and a growing greenhouse..."
On Your Mark
"For you and I, know that this space, this pace, this race is a gift to be shared, craved, and loved."
Teaching Rounds
"In the corridor, he demands a confession: Who peeled back his bandage? Who let him look?"
Bella, Horrida Bella
“In the realm of psychiatry, the therapeutic value of poetry lies in its ability to transcend the limitations of prose, offering a space for the unsayable and the ineffable.”
"Lay Down Sally"
"He’s dying on dialysis—I’ve known him since my first days as a doctor, and now he wants to quit..."
Within Reach
As Martin Luther King Day approaches, a psychiatrist shares his thoughts... and hopes we are in within reach of those dreams and ideals.
The Second Coming
"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world..."
Anticipatory Growth
A psychiatrist reflects on a new year and anticipatory growth.
Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear
"Spray the perfume of your smiles on the incision. Inject the song of life into my veins to wake me up. Gently beat the drum so my mind may dance with yours, my doctor, day and night."
Poetry for Inclusion 2023
Here are some highlights from Frank A. Clark, MD’s, Poetry for Inclusion from throughout 2023, as seen in Psychiatric Times.
'The One'
"...my eyes searching for the one skater in every crowd who glides graceful as a god, like my father years ago in his black leather racing skates..."
Composed by an African
"This letter I write from the heavenly ashes wishing that ebony and ivory twirl as one into the arms of divine humanity."
Midnight
"My black cat sprints through the kitchen door, a glassy-eyed cottontail hanging limp from his jaws."
"Thank You"
"Walk through the garden's dormant splendor. Say only, thank you."
Love After Love
"You will love again the stranger who was your self."
Degrees of Revealedness
How does one heal? Perhaps by "degrees of revealedness," according to a psychiatrist's reflections.
"How JFK Killed My Father"
"Hat factories closed quiet as prayer books, and loss lingered in my father’s guts like unswept garbage after a big parade..."
Thanksgiving Tree
A psychiatrist reflects on gratitude and Thanksgiving...
Poetic Canvas
A psychiatrist reflects on how much we all have in common and the need for healing...
The Gaza-Israel War: “A Major Poetic Emergency”
A poetic conversation among a Palestinian Israeli psychologist, an Italian Canadian psychiatrist, and a Canadian United Church Pastor in a time of war.
Perhaps the World Ends Here
"Perhaps the world will end at the kitchen table, while we are laughing and crying, eating of the last sweet bite."
How JFK Killed My Father
"It was a time when men wore fedoras banded on the crown, each band with a feather tucked into a bow, and inside, sweat bands carved from calf skins with their sweet smell of animal and earth."
I Knew a Woman
"Of her choice virtues only gods should speak, Or English poets who grew up on Greek (I’d have them sing in chorus, cheek to cheek)."
Positively Haiku: Illustrated Affirmations in 17 Syllables
This book offers positivity via a unique form of poetry.
Land Ho
"I know I have the blood of survivors coursing through my veins; I know the lament of our loss must warm us again and again down in the belly of the whale..."