What if you could explain economics and finance in the form of a poem? Jess Walter writes about exactly that in ?The Financial Lives of the Poets,” a novel that centers on a journalist who gives up newspaper work to offer online financial advice in free verse. The book comes out in paperback this month, just in time for the two-year anniversary of the financial crash that led to the current economic recession.

Jess tells us about the economy, poetry, and whether there’s anything that’s too awful to smile about or turn into a haiku.