WILLIAM CLOUD was born in 1997 in San Francisco, CA, the son of Quemadura Cloud and the poet Amina Calil.
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My Life in the Tush of Goats

I've been reading and writing poetry more or less since I was an adolescent living a stultifying existence in a small, central California agricultural town. Around the age of seventeen I formulated the ridiculously romantic notion that I would be an "artist" and conduct my outer, material life in a way that would provide me with ample time to devote to following this pursuit. While my peers were attending college, joining the military, or getting married, I decided to take any sort of job offered as long as it would pay for housing, food, and time to devote to writing, reading, and art making. At that time I had very little understanding of how economies work (or, most especially, don’t work), nor did I see that unskilled workers are expendable and most often get stuck with either low-paid employment or no employment at all.

I've worked as a food server in a retirement home, a delivery driver (first flowers, then cookies, and lastly mail), library assistant, used bookseller, temp worker, an EFL teacher overseas (the first time I had health insurance... in a "developing country," no less), researcher/data entry, ghostwriter, and as a clerk for a major grocery chain. While employed for this last company I learned that "the public" often see service employees as dimwitted servants to be mistreated, or worse, heart-and-soul representatives of a company that, among other practices, coerces employees into working harder for less money. I mean, why else would you be bagging groceries and stocking shelves unless you were an idiot? I quickly grew weary of being expected to shake my corporate pasties just because a bag of chips was purchased.

As for poetry and my work-life: calling oneself a "poet” seems somewhat embarrassing in any situation outside a poetry reading, a creative writing program, or in the company of other poets. It isn’t a badge of honor in the “real world.” The only co-worker I ever told I was a poet happened to have been a disciple of a San Francisco poet in the early 1960s. Talk about lucky. I have very successfully compartmentalized my life into "worker" and "artist” and never shall the twain meet. I just couldn't see the point in enthusing about The Countess from Minneapolis to uninterested co-workers while unloading a semi-truck at 4:30 a.m.

At present I've been technically unemployed for over 2 years, but sometimes find work as an "independent contractor." I regularly look for employment and do contract work as it comes available. Recently I've worked as a legal assistant, bookseller, and at an art center for disabled adults. Sometimes I do two jobs a day. I regularly apply for jobs, but I fear my resumés end up in the hands of a shady shopkeeper in Zothique. I hear there is a foot-high pile of them that she sells as recipes for disaster to her fellow Zothiqians.