I Want to Read at the White House

Any Good Poem

Richard Berlin, MD, shares the poem “I Want to Read at the White House,” by Joshua Clover. Clover was an acclaimed American poet, scholar, and professor recognized for his politically charged writing. Educated at Boston University and the Iowa Writers' Workshop, he published influential poetry collections, including a winner of the Walt Whitman Award. Beyond poetry, Clover was a dedicated educator and theorist, serving as a professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Davis, from 2003 until his passing in 2025. His critical work reflected his lifelong commitment to studying the relationship between art, capital, and revolution.

Dr Berlin has been writing a poem about his experience of being a doctor every month for the past 28 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 isTender Fences.