As Capitalism Gasps for Breath I Watch the Knicks Game

Any Good Poem

Richard Berlin, MD, shares Yesenia Montilla's poem, "As Capitalism Gasps for Breath I Watch the Knicks Game." Montilla is an Afro-Latina poet and a daughter of immigrants. She is the author of The Pink Box, long-listed for a 2016 PEN Open Book award, and Muse Found in a Colonized Body, a finalist for a 2023 NAACP Image Award. Her work has also been published in The Best American Poetry 2021 and 2022. Montilla earned an MFA from Drew University in poetry and poetry in translation. She lives in Harlem, New York City.

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 instructor in psychiatry, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, Massachusetts. His latest book is Tender Fences.