Paperback, 144 pages
ISBN-13: 979-8901468227
William Heathwas born in Youngstown, OH. A graduate of Hiram College, with a Ph.D. in American Studies from Case Western Reserve, he taught American literature and creative writing at Kenyon, Transylvania, Vassar, and the University of Seville as the Fulbright professor of American literature. Since 1981, he taught at Mount Saint Mary’s University, where he edited The Monocacy Valley Review. He retired as a professor emeritus in 2007. The William Heath Award is given annually to honor a student writer. In 2008–9, he was the Sophia M. Libman Professor of Humanities at Hood College. In 2023, he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from Hiram.
He authored many award-winning prose books, including The Children Bob Moses Led (Milkweed Editions, 1995; paperback, 1997), which is about the civil rights movement in Mississippi, and Devil Dancer (Somondoco Press, 2013) a neo-noir crime novel. His work was nominated for the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize. His book reviews and essays on Hawthorne, Melville, Twain, William Styron, Thomas Berger, Robert Stone, and Frank Bergon, among others, appear in newspapers, scholarly journals, literary magazines, reviews, and anthologies.
He began publishing poetry in the sixties. His recent collections include Steel Valley Elegy (Kelsay Books, 2022), Going Places (Kelsay Books, 2023), Alms for Oblivion (Kelsay Books, 2024), and Inventing the Americas (Finishing Line Press, 2024). He and his wife, Roser Caminals-Heath—author of ten novels in Catalan—live in Maryland.
Prime Time combines autobiography, travel, social commentary, and philosophical speculation in ways that capture the author’s distinctive sensibility, his wry and ironic take on the incongruities of life in America that blends laugh-out-loud comic riffs and deeper meditations on the tragic aspects of existence. Beginning as a poet in the 1960s, with a long interlude as a novelist, literary critic, and historian, a decade ago William Heath returned to his first love and the results are four remarkable poetry books. The carefully crafted poems in Prime Time display the author at his mature best.
Praise for Prime Time
Among the many revelations in Prime Time, William Heath’s wonderful new book, is that I never thought about Augustine’s erections, not once, and didn’t even realize I hadn’t until this poet’s imagination exposed my limitations. Heath realizes nothing is profane except fear of the truth, which makes his poems endlessly surprising and this book a journey you’ll be happy – and lucky – to take.
— Bob Hicok, author of Breathe
This book is a real pleasure, full of engaging poems on a wide variety of subjects, drawing on the poet’s wide travels, life experience, and keen insight. There are thumbnail biographies containing little-known historical facts (“Diogenes” and “Tom Paine’s Bones”), bemused social commentaries (“Men’s Book Club”), interesting nature poems (“Killer Whales Attack Yachts Off Gibraltar”), and philological gems (“Lear on the Heath”). All poems use natural words in natural order, have memorable diction and imagery, and are rewarding on first reading.
— David Stephenson, author of Secret Dance
The most entertaining poetry collection I’ve read in a very, very long time, offering a panoramic view of human foibles, our morals and manners. The ordinary is recast with wit and precision, providing a brilliant commentary on our strange circus of a world. Prime Time is stylish, but it’s got some unstylish truth to it.
— David Salner, author of Summer Words: New & Selected Poems
The Poet and the Poem 2026-2027 Series
featuring Robin Dunn and William Heath
Hosted by Grace Cavalieri – July, 2026
Celebrating 50 years on-air in 2027
The Poet and the Poem is an hour-long radio interview program hosted by Grace Cavalieri featuring with leading poets and sponsored by the Library of Congress and the Witter Bynner Foundation.
Poems from Prime Time
New York, New York
for Toby Olson
I recall the time Toby and Miriam
live on the not-so-upper East Side.
I park beside a fenced-in lot
a few blocks from their apartment.
We enjoy an evening of wine drinking
and poetry talking. It is well past
midnight when I return to my car.
Even from down the street I see
something is terribly wrong,
a strange tilt soon reveals all tires
missing, windshield shattered,
steering wheel stolen, front seat ripped
out, trunk burst open, a box gone of
first editions (invaluable to me, worthless
to thieves) for Tom Berger, who lives
in a Gramercy Park penthouse, to sign.
The lifted hood, like a mouth shouting
for help, no longer covers an engine.
At Toby’s I call the insurance agent,
tell her my car has been stripped
and totaled. In an abrasive voice
reminiscent of my third-grade teacher
she scolds, “There’s a big difference,
young man, between stripped and totaled.”
I am aware of that and repeat
my assertion. She says tomorrow
a man will come make an estimate.
In the morning from across the street
I stare at the corpse of my Ford Falcon.
It seems I have parked in Spanish Harlem,
a boy from the neighborhood stands
on the roof as I watch and launches
a belly flop on the still-open hood,
smashing it down with a resounding crash
to the delight of his friends who take
turns lifting the hood and repeating
the stunt. A blind man comes tapping
down the sidewalk, stops, turns his head
toward the noise, reaches into the car
to snatch the ashtray, and taps away.
When the insurance man arrives
he opens his notebook, glances at
the damage, says in awe, “My god,
it really is stripped and totaled!”
Summer of the Wolf
That summer I study contemporary
American literature in a NEH seminar
led by Benjamin DeMott at Amherst.
The ten-bedroom country house where
I stay belongs to a professor on leave
in France. It seems many an Amherst prof
considers their salary, compared to trust
funds and stock holdings, pin money.
The highlight of the class is the day
a convert to performative feminism
takes the novel we are reading, tosses it
onto a platter at the center of our
seminar table, sets it on fire using her
cigarette lighter, strips to bra and panties,
and begins to dance with wild abandon
(abdomen?) beside the blaze.
I’m not sure what point she’s making,
something about the male chauvinist authors
we’ve been reading and the way women
by nature long to run with the wolves.
As it so happens, a few evenings later
I am sitting on the veranda gazing
across an extensive lawn with a setting
sun in the distance and see what at first
looks like a large dog, yet something in
the way it moves and glances about
suggests a wolf on the prowl. But there
are no wolves in Massachusetts.
It is larger than a coyote and its coat
is gray. For decades I ponder the mystery
until recently I read a novel called Happiness
about an American woman who keeps track
of foxes living in London. In passing she
mentions that a few New England coyotes did
breed with wolves. That answers one question,
not the mystery of the dancing woman.
Prime Time
My wife, I am sure of it,
is having an affair with a guy
who drives a truck, drops
by on a regular basis, leaves
her nicely packaged presents
on our front porch. I bring
them in to hand over to her
and don’t stand around until
they’re opened. I want to be
discreet about all this, we’re
both mature adults. I respect
her freedom and independence,
so we don’t talk about it.
I swallow my pride, yet dread
the next day, his next visit,
the cocky devil even rings
the doorbell, leaves his gift,
and drives away in the same
truck as always, the one
with Prime on its side.
Irreconcilable Differences
My wife and I are now divorced
for a week due to irreconcilable
differences: she has Covid,
I don’t. So it comes to pass we sleep
in separate beds, eat meals at
separate tables, read our books,
work at our computers, watch
television shows every evening
in different rooms. She is taking
Paxlovid and still has a few days
to go. At night in bed I hear
from the next room her occasional
cough, probably she hears me
make my nightly treks to the toilet
every few hours to pee. We hope
to work out a reconciliation soon
without the help of counseling.
A day will come when all the Paxlovid
pills are gone along with those
occasional coughs, the sinuses
will clear, and Covid will move on
to the next unlucky couple.
Grace on Skates
The best skaters glide
backwards on the ice
more swiftly than forward,
short skirts whipping
lithe legs.
This skating in reverse
is a kind of miracle
as if the act made time
go backwards too. She
already looks young,
but could I see her
become younger yet?
I think so. Perhaps it is
a secret of ice skaters,
why skating backwards
is grace in motion,
a defiance of the laws
of life, no wonder when
she leaps and spins
suspended a moment
in the air, time and gravity
in abeyance, I can even
believe the world ceases
to turn, stands still before
our mundane lives resume.
Killer Whales Attack Yachts Off Gibraltar
They’re not budding revolutionaries
out to get the fat cats on deck,
nor is their goal to free the oceans
of all those large sleek interlopers
churning up the waters,
yet gangs of Orcas have struck
hundreds of yachts, sinking
a few, and will not stop.
The cause of this populist revolt?
It’s the rudders, stupid.
It seems teenage killer whales
began nosing around these new toys,
bumping their heads and such,
but if you and your sweet-sixteen pals
happen to be twelve-feet long
you can do a massive
amount of damage.
It’s a kind of fad, experts say,
like the time Orcas began wearing
dead salmon as hats (that
was a lot of fun), and this
is just a thrill-seeking game
with dangerous consequences.
And now that Bluefin tuna
are back in abundance
teenage whales don’t need
to take all day hunting for food,
this boring period of affluence
leaves them with a lot of free time
on their fins, so why not
see who can smack a yacht
the hardest? Let’s even try
to make one dive.
The Need for Trees
Human progress is measured
by taking land away from trees,
cutting them down to clear
the ground and build houses,
plant crops, create fields for
livestock to range and graze.
In the time of the Neanderthals
stone axes gave men a sharp
edge against thick trunks, from
then on humans had their way
with the trees. By Anglo-Saxon
times most of England had been
cleared of its dense forests.
Trees were felled for pasture,
farming, and for hardwoods
to construct various structures
essential for farms, towns,
and city dwellers, to say nothing
of the need for tall masts so
Britannia could rule the waves.
That a lack of trees harms the way
we breathe, our reliance on pleasant
weather, has recently come, too
late, to cross our minds.
The Spin on Things
In many sports the secret
is the spin on the ball:
the tight spiral of the skilled
quarterback, how the gifted
shooter knows to pronate
a wrist to create the right
backspin on a basketball,
and the talented pitcher
snaps off a sharp-breaking
curve or slider. Even in
soccer you can apply a foot
to add a furious twirl to a ball
finding the far corner of the net.
To say nothing of tennis with
its top spins and drop shots,
or golfers flaunting a whole
cartful of clubs, each designed
to send a whirling orb sailing
a predetermined distance.
Let’s admit that it’s godlike,
this spin that keeps our globe
afloat in the vast sea of our galaxy.
The whole damn solar system
circles on itself and expands
beyond the reach of thought.
We even like to assume
our little rotating sphere
of a planet has a goal
in mind, as this our world
interminably turns and turns.
Lear on the Heath
(Heath on Lear)
Land cleared of trees and left
to bogs, briars, and bracken
is called “bare heath.” The first
human beings are “woodland men,”
homines sylvestres. Human progress
is from the forest to the field.
Heathens are people who remain
on the heath, unfit to be Christian
citizens. They hedge their bets,
you might say, and stay half-wild.
When Lear forsakes his kingdom
he retreats to a bare heath, exposed
to lightning and the pitiless pelting
of a storm, he encounters Tom
and realizes that we are all
poor bare forked creatures
at the mercy of the elements
and our own flawed nature.
Standing on the heath mad
Lear speaks a tragic wisdom
preceding any formal creeds.
Curmudgeon’s Lament
What literary reputation I have,
sorry to say, is in remission.
If you are a serious writer in America
seek a goal within reach—neglect.
I’ve been to Greece, hiked the slopes
of Mount Parnassus; they are littered
with sheep droppings. I will die
the death of a curmudgeon—
sour grapes caught in my craw.
Fame is a game of musical chairs,
who sits or lacks a seat at the table
is willy-nilly a whim of fashion.
As an artist I have cultivated
the art of going unnoticed.
Sometimes in the morning
I forget my own name.