Mrs. Butterworth, Uncle Ben & Aunt Jemima

Any Good Poem

Richard Berlin, MD, shares the poem "Mrs. Butterworth, Uncle Ben & Aunt Jemima," by Frank X. Walker. Walker was born in Danville, Kentucky and earned a BA from the University of Kentucky and an MFA from Spaulding University. He helped to found the Affrilachian Poets group and served as founding editor and publisher of PLUCK!, the new Journal of Affrilachian Art & Culture. He is the author of numerous books, and his awards includes the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work in Poetry.Walker served as the poet laureate of Kentucky from 2013 to 2015. He is an associate professor of English at the University of Kentucky.

Dr Berlin has been writing a poem about his experience of being a doctor every month for the past 26 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.