Accessory to War

Any Good Poem

Richard Berlin, MD, shares Kim Stafford's poem "Accessory to War." Stafford is Emeritus Professor at Lewis and Clark College in Oregon. He writes, teaches, and travels to raise the human spirit through poetry. In 1986, he founded the Northwest Writing Institute, and he has published a dozen books of poetry and prose. His most recent book is the poetry collection As the Sky Begins to Change (Red Hen Press, 2024). In 2018 he was named Oregon’s 9th Poet Laureate for a 2-year term.

Dr Berlin has been writing a poem about his experience of being a doctor every month for the past 27 years in Psychiatric Times in a column called “Poetry of the Times.” He is an instructor in psychiatry, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, Massachusetts. His latest book is Tender Fences.