Tillie Olsen wrote Silences, about how working-class writers, and women, didn't have the time, and energy, after doing everything else they have to do, to write. I write about how a yob, or yobbo novelist solves the problem. A yoob novelist. From Extended Unemployment Benefits (EUB). I wrote the great American novel on unemployment.

And what did I do when my unemployment benefits ran out, and I had to go back to work? I wrote HELD-IN-ABEYANCE (HIA).

I took a job, took the links to my books down, at The Daily Bulletin, because I had security clearance issues at work.

I went underground. I silenced myself.

This gave me a freedom to write posting my work online didn't give me. It made me more free, more daring, more bold. The Bold Annunciators. Walter Cronkite was an announcer. Dancing packs of Old Gold cigarettes.

May we Marfak your car? This is my brother-in-law's car, Walter--Marfak you.

I prepare to give a presentation at the 10th Annual Gulf Coast Writers Conference on Writing the Black Memoir After 9-11. Michael Connelly is the keynote speaker. He wrote The Scarecrow about what happened to the profession of reporter. HELD-IN-ABEYANCE (HIA) is about what happened to the profession of writer.

I write the pamphlet of poems Black Papers to hand out at my presentation.

It's an example of how I write.

Well, that answers the question, right there.

You can't give the people a pamphlet like Black Papers.

Are you nuts?

No, I'm a soccer hooligan.

I write the presentation Black Papers. Then the pamphlet Madcap Titan of the Dustbin, comparing myself to Kurt Schwitters. Then This Is Not a Pamphlet.

It isn't a pamphlet. HELD-IN-ABEYANCE (HIA) is not a book. Who touches this, touches a man, Camerado. A workingman in his prime. Take my time.

Time is the least thing we have of, Hemingway said.

But there's no sense hurrying. You just make yourself tense.

Take your time. Don't get sucked into the vortex.

You're 70. It's too late to hurry now.