"Postscript"

Any Good Poem

Richard Berlin, MD, shares the poem “Postscript,” by Marie Howe. Howe is a celebrated American poet, author, and educator, known for her lyrical and emotionally precise work that explores themes of love, loss, and spirituality in everyday life. She was the 2025 Pulitzer Prize winner for Poetry, and her career includes being the New York State Poet Laureate from 2012–2014 and serving as Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. A former journalist and high school teacher, she earned an MFA from Columbia University and now teaches at institutions like Sarah Lawrence College and NYU.

Dr Berlin has been writing a poem about his experience of being a doctor every month for the past 27 years inPsychiatric 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.