Heyen heads to A2

Heyen's tale of the House of Windsor is a different story than all the media hype about the royal family.

Heyen questions the monarchy as an outdated, crumbling institution. At the same time, he presents the monarchy's new face as it is framed in tabloids. Heyen adds a personalized scope that places the three Royals somewhere in-between.

The best sections, like "Happy Birthday," are autonomous mini-narratives. In South Africa, Heyden writes, a black man ran after the royal car, "and caught it ... the Queen broke her parasol on him, & policemen knocked him senseless."

PREVIEW
	William Heyen Shaman Drum Tuesday at 8

In his hand was a birthday present for the Queen, but since he was a black man in South Africa in 1950, that didn't matter.

The text obliquely questions the monarchy's concerns, as well as the royal family's status as cultural icons and stage-setters, by layering them within other stories.

Sometimes the public attention seems valid, but the immense concesen of the royal family and the press with superfluous matters such as Diana's virginity or the stamp incident leave the reader floundering as to how to react.

"'How about a headless stamp?' ... Elizabeth's displeasure was noted and passed on." Being a plebe, it's hard to identify with the Queen, upset at the suggestion of Brit-currency without her image.

The most effective moments occur when the Royals are placed out of context, such as the scene in which Prince Philip smacks a U.S. Secret Service Agent with a rolled-up newspaper and tells him to get the car moving.

"President Reagan & Queen Elizabeth on horseback for a quiet ride in Windsor Great Park, but the Gripper pauses to have his picture taken by the White House Press.

"This annoys the Queen, as does the President's breaking protocol by sometimes riding ahead of her. For too long, he's been a cowboy, she mutters, & a Catholic football player," writes Heyen.

"Diana, Charles, & the Queen" reads like a fairy tale, emphasized by the repetitive form - eight lines, two quatrains - of each poem.

The poem addresses the dramatic points of the Diana and Charles saga - the bulimia, the pregnant Diana hurling herself down the stairs and the licentious conversations between Camilla and Charles.

This is nothing new, however, as TV and People Magazine have already covered these issues extensively, and tabloids have picked them apart.

To use "Diana" and "bulimia" in a poem is brave. But the readers, saturated to the gills with the Royals, want something more from these poems than recycled information read while waiting in the grocery store checkout line.

But the book is self-contained and self-referential. The British Royals are already too hyped by the U.S. press, but Heyen promotes them in a different way. The mythical, romantic and bloody is reduced to make the Royals seem almost real.

Heyen will be reading from his book at Shaman Drum on Tuesday, May 19 at 8 p.m.

-Cara Spindler

05-18-98