Listen

Any Good Poem

Richard Berlin, MD, shares the poem "Listen" by Barbara Crooker. Crooker was born in Cold Spring, New York in 1945, and lived in Fogelsville, Pennsylvania for over 40 years. A widely published and award-winning poet, she began writing in the late 1970s. Her work explores themes of nature, family, disability, love, and loss.

Poet Tracy Smith describes the poem "Listen" this way:

"'Listen' offers up a message of calm and gratitude. It's one I want to learn to offer myself—especially on days when peace feels far-away. Are there people out there who live always with that gratitude? That sense of the world with its simple gifts being all the plenty they seek?"

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.