Diana, Charles & the Queen (American Poets Continuum) [Paperback]

William Heyen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 1998 | Series: American Poets Continuum (Book 45)

"What happened? What really happened,/Charles wonders. One scandal after another---/his, Fergie's, Di's---coming together/like a curse on the Windsors."

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Heyen has written extensively on the Holocaust and here continues his interest in historical subject matter, turning to the House of Windsor. The result is a clever, off-beat narrative comprising 323 eight-line rhymed "poems" that explore the gulf between modern realities and the glamour of romance ("the stuff of fairy tales"). Feeling "comic sorrow and admiration," Heyen probes the tangled behavior of famous people for "the origins of indiscretion & stupidity." "Princess of the lens," Diana emerges as the major voice in this semifictionalized sequence (an author's note informs that this book was completed before Diana's death). "Miserable and divine," growing up on Barbara Cartland romances, "shy/ aggrieved, bulimic" Diana faces many problems. Unfortunately, the anecdotal, contrived form of this work, which readers will find peculiar, trivializes rather than enlarges Heyen's considerable poetic ability and fails to do justice to Diana's life (or death). Overall, a well-meant attempt to transform current events into the order of poetry; recommended for graduate-school libraries.?Frank Allen, Northhampton Community Coll., Tannersville, Pa.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

1588
1948
Absentee Father
Acupuncture
Ad
Advice
Affair
After-aura
Aids, 1988
Air Raid
Airport Lounge
Albatross
Aliens
Anthem
The Apprentice
April 1945
Architecture For Architecture's Sake
Aromatherapy
Ars Geneologica
Art
At Gordonstoun
At School
At The Edge Of The Arctic, The Prince Ate
Audition
Australia: School In The Bush
Avalanche
The Awakening
Babi Yar
Backbench
Baglady
Bbc
Beads
A Beatles Reunion
Bede
Bedfellows
The Bird
Birnham Wood
Bisquit
Blue Leather
Bong
Bower
Boy King
Britain & The Heel Of Africa
Broadside
The Camillagate Poet
Campbell's Soup
Cancellation
The Capital Of Malaysia, 1989
Carol
Catnap
Cave
The Celebrant
Charles Iii
Chastity
The Child (1)
Childhood
The Chosen
Circus
Cleff
Cleopatra
Click
Clotheshorse
Coin Of The Realm
Cold Turkey
Color
Coming Attractions
Commander
Communion
Companion
Compensation
Convertible
Cortez
Cortez Ii
The Crank
Crime Of The Century
Crosseyed
The Daydreamer
Deadpan
Death
The Death Of George Vi
December 11, 1937
Di To The Dark Hospital Come
Di Working Out
Di's Blood
Di's Tears
Diana Must Conceal Her Unhappiness
Different Directions
Distance
The Diver
Divorce Astronomy
Double Future Negative
Dracula
A Dream Of Berries
Dream: The Admonition
Drink To Me Only
Duchy: The Flowers
During The Cold War
An Early Romance
Ears
The East
Ecology
The Eel
Elsewhere
Empathy
Empire
Epiphany
Eton
Evolution
Fakirs
Family
Famous Photo
Farmers
Fashion
Fate
Fidei Defensor
Figure
Figurine
First Edition
For Want Of A Crowbar
Free Verse
From Zululand, 1947: Open Mike
Fuel Line
Game Face
Gargoyle Pond
The Genius
Georgic
Gift
Global Warming
Gold Ear
Golf
The Green Prince
Happy Birthday
Herstory
Highgrove
Hiroshima
His Story
Hms Britannia
Hormones
The Huntress
Hygiene
Hymen
Identity
Illumination
Impi
In Short
In The Beginning
Intruder
Ira, 1979
Is The People
Jack The Ripper
Jackal
Jfk
Job: Double Spondee
Jumbo
The Jungle
Kindred Spirits
Lactose
Lennon
Lights Out
Lingerie Stowaway
Lion
Literature As Prophecy
Living Art
London
Lonely In India
Losses
Lost Rhyme
Love
Lucy
Lungs
Mad Sheep Disease
Madonna
Marble Men & Maidens
Marriage Emblem, 1996
Marrow
Meditation & Return
Memphis
Menagerie
The Midas Touch
The Mind In Its Own Place
Mirror
Miscarriage
Mitosis
The Monarchy In The Next Millennium
The Monster
The Morning After
The Mother
Motorcade
Mozart
Nature
Nature
Night Rain
Nightmare
No Mind
Nor Live So Long
Northwest Royal Mounted Police
Notre Dame
Oak
Occasional Verse
Ocean
One Hand Clapping
Opera For Opera's Sake
Ostrich
Ours
The Owl
Paint
Painting
Parallel Universe
Parent
Party
Penelope
Phallic
Piccadilly
Plaque
Plastic Mermaid
The Poem That Cuts Through Red Tape
Poetry & The War
Poll
Polo Fan
Portraits
Possessions
Post Abdicationism
Postage
Pralines
Pregnant
Prerequisite: The Virgin
Prisoners
Prophecy
Prufrock Luncheon At Number Ten
The Public
Public Service
The Purse
The Queen's Philatelic Collection
The Question
Rapture
Rasputin Box
The Ravening
Receptacles
The Reflection
Relic
Respite
Retrospect
Revenge
Rhyme & Reason
Ribet Cage
Riddle
Rodeo Clown
Romance
The Ropes
Round Trip
The Royal Person
Rumor
The Scandal
Schadenfreude
Seat Selection
The Secret
Shornsteinfeger
Shrimp
Silkworms
Snow
Soul
The Speed Of Light
Spores
Spots In Time
Spring Song
Springwater
Stephen Barry
Stew
Subject Matter
The Sun Never Sets
Sympathy
Synthesis
The Tan Transcendentalist
Tank
Tanning
Telephone Call To Camilla
Tent Shadows
They
Time
Time's Body
Toilette
Transformation
Triptych Misc.
Trojan Horse
Twa Phony Corbies
Ugly American
The Unaccountable
Unreported Coronation Incident
Upchucking
Veal
Venice
Verbs
Verdun
Victory
Virus
Walkabout
Walt
Watching Charles Play Polo, 1980
Watching Philip Play Tennis, 1947
Watergate
Waterworld
Wedding Bells
Wedding Night
Wedding Present
Wedding Presents
Whale
Windsor Castle, 1940
Wisdom
Wisteria
Working Jigsaw Puzzles
The Wound
The Wounded Prince
You
-- Table of Poems from Poem Finder®

Diana, Charles, & the Queen, William Heyen's current book of poems, is an interesting curiosity. The author notes that "this book was completed in June 1996, two months before Princess Diana and Prince Charles were divorced, and contracted for publication in July of 1997." Diana's death in Paris the following month, and the obvious commercial opportunity for all things "Diana," offers BOA Editions an unanticipated market for what would otherwise be a slight and easily dismissed collection.Composed uniformly in pairs of loosely-linked fours, the poem, "Round Trip," suggests Heyen's cohering design and attitude: "Charles read a book whose poems / were each eight lines / two quatrains, / usually rhymed. The poems reminded him // of doubledecker buses, & he could ride them / above traffic no matter what / their subject, / usually Di & himself as repellent forces, or fictions." Heyen's roughly 300 eight-line poems absorb themselves with momentary incisions into the lives of their royal subjects. It is Diana that his verses most intriguingly touch and on occasion hauntingly illumine-bulimic, nursing, opportunistically unfaithful, dressed in yellow, touching a leper and then her own face, getting advice ("Di needs a sex life, and central heating // and maybe a prosthesis for her posture," from "Advice"), receiving Mother Theresa's prayers (the closure from "Baglady," " ...but prayed this daughter win her poverty."), confronting paparazzi, confronting fear.That Heyen's book is at once tabloid history and iconically engaged is surely a fortuitous commercial coincidence, though it likely amounts to less than the "visionary" label BOA Editions editors may be tempted to attach to the collection. Politics and the swells of popular media have long attracted the attentions of poets and writers, with monarchy's glamorized lives and instances of royal demise much before us imagewise. William Heyen offers up substantially fresher throne-chat than the night-upon-night clips of CNN.What to make of HRH Charles? Heyen fashions him much the ill-at-ease, chalky-hearted fellow we've come to expect. His Camilla-love is depicted in neo-tough, comic metaphor ("I'll fill your tank," Charles gushed / to Camilla over the cell phone- / we assume high octane semen, / the Prince's rigid nozzle...," from "Fuel Line") and when Charles attempts to feel the world's pulse in empathetic liaison the result is stilted, disharmonious, irrelevant. Perhaps polo really is his only game.While Diana, Charles, & the Queen has charm, it's a lesser book by a highly respected poet. That William Heyen likely will reach a broader audience with it than with such fine earlier collections as Erika: Poems of the Holocaust, Crazy Horse in Stillness, and The Host: Selected Poems 1965-1990, is paradox enough to bring a smile to a poetry publisher's lips. -- From Independent Publisher

Product Details

• Paperback: 124 pages
• Publisher: BOA Editions Ltd.; 1st edition (January 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1880238691
• ISBN-13: 978-1880238691
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.7 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #324,316 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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5.0 out of 5 stars Poetry as the true inverse of the tabloids., February 20, 2006

By 

Daryl Anderson (Trumansburg, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Diana, Charles & the Queen (American Poets Continuum) (Paperback)

Well. Here I am writing a review for another poetry book ranked vanishingly low in the Amazon sales ranks.

Too bad. Especially for such an unexpectedly good read.

Frederick Turner is a poet whom I've enjoyed particularly for his boldness in crossing boundaries of "genre" in his narrative poetry - he writes book-length SciFi epics in verse. The tricky bit, as you can imagine, is that very (very!) few readers of poetry would skance to glance at science fiction. Hence Turner's marvelous epics go hugely unread and vastly under-enjoyed.

William Heyen has taken a similar, anti-commercial path with this book. How many readers of poetry have had even the slightest interest in the pathetic, media-hyped fairyless-tale of Lady Di and the royals? Conversely, how many of those interested in the latter eagerly await the next issue from BOA Editions !? Like me, you probably could not help but have noticed the Di-Charles saga any more than you could have missed noticing the OJ chase. But certainly one wasn't going to expect serious poetry under such a guise!

Nevertheless, here it is: the royal duo refracted through a strange and fascinating prism. Somehow, Heyen pulls it off. I have no idea if any of the principals are actually the people portrayed here - but the latter are certainly more interesting human beings than those splattered around by the papparazzi.

Consider, for instance, how Heyen approaches the third of his trinity - the queen. She is mostly portrayed in his verse as the young proto-princess Lilibet. Somehow Heyen's approach to parsing elements of that little girl's transformation into the iconic royal visage we see waving her way through the crowds sets the stage for a closer sympathy for the more troubled pair at the heart of the story.

And story it is... Only poetry could jump and skip and fake and whirl to pull a selection of vignettes from those three lives that has a narrative pull but a human flow. In 300-odd double quatrains Heyen manages to tell a story that is steeped in the spans of time within which these royals exist but rich in a sense of their humanity.

Although Diana, the icon, gains some third dimensionality from the portrayal, it is Charles who grows out of the page the most. One would have had to live on another planet for the past two decades not to have absorbed an overall sense of the future king as, at best, a shallow character. Heyen will turn your view around.

Of course, as I mentioned above, none of the trio might actually have ever resembled the characterizations that Heyen weaves. And doubtless we all, in a thoughtful moment, had probably already given at least internal assent to the notion that there must be more to these people than meets the front page. Heyen's real accomplishment is in using a truly different form to twist the reader around to reconsider how real life is - even life lived among the unreal.