‘The Prince of Amsterdam’

Heathcote Williams’s tribute to the late poet Simon Vinkenoog had me choking with laughter.

And when the tribute to this ‘electric, ecstatic” poet of “ultra optimism” turns serious — when it recounts what Vinkenoog says in a dream to a friend: “It’s a party in heaven. I’m here with kindred spirits only. It’s like earth without all the shit.” — Williams writes, “I hope that it’s not a crazy Dutch joke, nor that I’m just being gullible again, because of course you always want some people to go on forever and ever.”