Heathcote was always prescient. But it is still astonishing to realize how relevant — and resonant — his dissident voice remains more than a dozen years after he recorded "The United States of Porn."
It is unnerving to hear the poem’s grim swaggering refrain — "WE ARE AMERICANS, YOU ARE NOTHING” — prophetically summoning up the Trumpian tone of our time. But the impact of the poem is much larger than that. My trusty little tape recorder caught every word and breath of it in the tiny kitchen of his home in Oxford, England.
Thank you for posting this excellent recording of an excellent poem. Brodsky’s Bust of Tiberius comes to mind, though that marble portrays an execrable emperor younger than America’s present monster.
Ah thanks for the comment. I admire the poetry I’ve read of Brodsky’s, and yes, I see what you mean in your reference to ‘The Bust of Tiberius.’ But Heathcote is much angrier and much less fatalistic. For anyone interested in reading the Brodsky poem, here it is:
https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1987/06/25/the-bust-of-tiberius/
if you’re not stopped by a paywall.
You can also read the Brodsky poem here, at no charge, if you don’t mind scrolling down to page 71,
https://www.scribd.com/document/272161193/Joseph-Brodsky-To-Urania
which is a hassle.
Let me also recommend “Jam the throttle, Skipper Larry / SOS to Ensign Ferlinghetti,” by the sadly less well known Charles Plymell, whose reading of it can be found on YouTube.
Thx for yr comment. I’m well aware of Charley’s poem about Ferlinghetti. Scroll down here:
https://www.artsjournal.com/herman/2024/05/charles-plymell-takes-stage-for-new-selected-poems.html
Charley had a long — many decades long — argument with Ferlinghetti, which he takes back in this poem with admirable humility and affection. The poem is an intimate, sharply perceptive, enduring portrait of Ferlinghetti. Having spent a number of years as Lawrence’s assistant during the 1960s, I know firsthand how psychologically accurate Charley’s poem is, and I admire it greatly.
But let’s not get mixed up. It is not the same kind of poem as Heathcote’s either in category or intention.