Mental health professionals are just starting to talk about and treat the long-term effects of the trauma that emergency workers - emergency medical technicians, fire fighters, first responders, emergency room personnel - live with every day.

Advanced Emergency Medical Technician (AEMT) Mark Creaven's therapy has been writing poetry. And he writes good poetry - at times lyrical, at times harsh and painfully evocative, always honest.

Mark's poetry is not just about the things he's seen in his long career as a first responder. As he says, " When you're not in an ambulance,...