America

Any Good Poem

Richard Berlin, MD, shares Tony Hoagland's poem, "America." Hoagland was born in Fort Bragg, North Carolina in 1953. His father was an Army doctor and Hoagland grew up on various military bases. He attended and dropped out of several colleges, picked apples and cherries in the Northwest, lived in communes, followed the Grateful Dead, and eventually became a Buddhist. Years later, he went on to teach in the University of Houston creative writing program. Hoagland died in 2018; he was 64. Berlin is a fan of Hoagland's savvy, his sense of humor and insight into relationships, and his experience of beauty.

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.