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IPFS News Link • Death

Heathcote Williams, Radical British Poet Who Helped Form Anarchist Nation, Dies at 75

• https://www.nytimes.com, By WILLIAM GRIMES

His daughter Lily Williams said the cause was lung disease.

Mr. Williams, a radical in the tradition of Blake and Shelley, vented his outrage at royal privilege, private property, environmental degradation and a host of other targets, using every artistic means available.

He took dead aim at enforced conformity, the stupefying effects of television and the malign intentions of mental health professionals in plays like "AC/DC."

"If you were to take the exploding typewriter of William Burroughs, add a soupçon of sophistication from Marshall McLuhan, a little popular science, a few comic books and a dash of popular psychology, and then stew the whole thing up with hate, then I suppose you might come out with a play such as Heathcote Williams's 'AC/DC,' " Clive Barnes of The New York Times wrote in 1970, reviewing a production of Mr. Williams's play at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.


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