Dane Cervine: “I worked for three decades as a therapist and director in the county mental health system in California, much of it as Chief of Children’s Mental Health in Santa Cruz where I was responsible for a ‘system of care’ that linked services with probation, child welfare, substance abuse services, and education. Like the ancient Chinese bureaucrats who balanced administrative life with poetry and the arts, I’ve always relied on each to balance the other in my own professional career. At times, I’ve written and published poems with an overt focus on issues that have arisen during the course of my civil service, as well as included client poems and stories in my annual report to the board of supervisors, and the state of California. Often though, it is simply a way to work out of both hemispheres in my brain—bring a bit of lyricism to civil service, and a bit of social justice and mental health awareness to my poetry.” (website)
