The Hinge of Spring

Any Good Poem

Richard Berlin, MD, shares Kay Ryan's poem "The Hinge of Spring." Ryan was born in California in 1945 and is acknowledged as one of the most original voices in contemporary poetry. She is the author of numerous books including The Best of It: New and Selected Poems, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 2010. Ryan’s tightly compressed, rhythmically dense poems are often compared with the poems of Emily Dickinson. Ryan was appointed as the Poet Laureate of the United States in 2008, held the position for 2 terms, and used the appointment to champion community colleges.

Why read poetry? Ryan replied, “It is the job of poetry to remain open to the whole catastrophe.”

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.