Poetry

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..."

"Suddenly, in every tree, an unseen nest where a mountain would be."

"Connect me to all children, Under undue distress all ‘round the world, Shaping the future of our warring lands..."

"Driving the Garden State Parkway to New York, I pointed out two crows to a woman who believed crows always travel in threes..."

"She walks in beauty, like the night, Of cloudless climes and starry skies; And all that’s best of dark and bright, Meet in her aspect and her eyes..."

"It is the winter of chest pain and snow, all the drunks smashed through the ER doors..."

"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..."

Explore the theme of mortality and the fleeting nature of time in a poem inspired by Stoic philosophy and personal reflection.

"No matter, Hattie: It’s a long, beautiful walk into that flower-smothered standing ovation, so go on and make them wait."

"What did I know, what did I know of love’s austere and lonely offices?"

"In my poem, says another, I can forget I am forgotten. Now I understand being misunderstood..."

"I begin by remembering my hours as a patient..."

"Tell yourself as it gets cold and gray falls from the air that you will go on..."

"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world..."

A psychiatrist reflects on the New Year and its potential...

"This is the moment my therapist would cross his legs, look into my eyes, and wait for me to reveal something."

"They don't teach the talking treatment anymore..."

"Here the body’s art conspires with destruction..."

"Each wound contains its own beauty..."

"Who would be a turtle who could help it?"

Medical student Liz Irvin discusses how storytelling is integral to her ability to stay sensitive when it comes to medicine and education, and shares a poem about an experience she had caring for others before starting medical school.

"The season pivots and bends to the darkening north..."

"The headlines said Well-Loved American Foods Resisted Arrest, Failed to Comply, and Were Delicious While Black."

“We’ll soon become the land, Of death on demand…”

"I say Good Morning! and he studies me in my white coat, like skin lesion he has seen only once in a textbook."

"After each lap around the circular hall the aides smile, Hello Doctor!"

"The national day had dawned."