After Apple Picking

Any Good Poem

Richard Berlin, MD, shares the poem "After Apple Picking" by Robert Frost. Frost eventually became famous for his poetry’s engagement with New England locales and themes, this poem included.

Frost graduated from Lawrence, MA High School in 1892, as 1 of the 2 class poets. The other poet was covaledictorian and his wife-to-be Elinor White. Two years later, the New York Independent accepted his poem entitled “My Butterfly,” launching his status as a professional poet with a check for $15.

Frost's first book wasn’t published until he was almost 40. He would go on to win a record four Pulitzer Prizes and become the most famous poet of his time. He died in 1983 at the age of 88. His gravestone epitaph: “I had a lover’s quarrel with the world.”

Dr Berlin has been writing a poem about his experience of being a doctor every month for the past 26 years in Psychiatric Times in a column called “Poetry of the Times.” He is instructor in psychiatry, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, Massachusetts. His latest book is Tender Fences.