For anyone unfamiliar with the work and life of Heathcote Williams, writer/poet/playwright, actor, socio-political activist, urban pirate/provocateur, enfin terrible and much, much more, David Erdos’s book He Was is a triumphal celebration of both the man and his work.  A book of brilliance and insight into a creative and protean being of polymathic gifts.  Here, Erdos, a consummate writer and poet himself, reviews and discusses the nature of some of the alchemical plays, poetry and manifestos of a man who shareda similar background, preoccupations, and history to Shelley, and who was able to retrieve that abandoned, still warm quill, in order to continue transforming words into their anagram of ‘sword’.  A sword that cuts through and exposes the egregious works of Establishment, State, and humanity generally.

Erdos gives breath to that sword now sadly within its scabbard, through this book and his own annual celebratory hymns and poems to someone who was/is both his hero and his personal muse, reflecting the light from that incendiary quill for his own work. 

Heathcote Williams was a beloved and seemingly karmic friend of mine from our early twenties, and it gives me great comfort to recognize David as his rightful and deserving Boswell, in hopefully bringing Heathcote’s often incandescent work to a wider readership in these blighted times.  What David Erdos does most importantly, is to show that while giving the title He Wasto this great little celebratory book, he at the same time establishes that He Is.

                                                                    Malcolm Ritchie