Q: Are you a member of the white underclass?
A: Not hardly.
My parents were middle class.
I am a college graduate.
I am computer-literate.
I’m a knowledge-worker.
I was once middle class myself.
Before the Bush-Enron administration reverted me to my permanent rank, yardbird.
I am retired. On a fixed income.
Social security and Medicare.
I’m an artist.
Artists are poor.
It’s my own fault.
It’s an elective poverty.
In
I write about what that is like.
Q: The only thing harder to sell than a book of poems is a book of essays.
Who do you think you are? Thoreau?
A: I call it a novel.
A book that refuses to assume either form. Any shape.
A shape-shifter.
Q: Warning to all. Your TV will tell you a lie.
A: C. M. Laster.
