"Good Bones"

Any Good Poem

Richard Berlin, MD, shares the poem "Good Bones" by Maggie Smith. Smith is a poet, writer, editor, and teacher. She has published several books of poetry, including Good Bones. Additionally, she has published 2 prose bestsellers, Keep Moving and Goldenrod. Her memoir, You Could Make This Place Beautiful, was also a New York Times bestseller.

Smith’s poems and essays have appeared in the New York Times, The New Yorker, the Guardian, the Paris Review, and The Best American Poetry. 

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.