Review by Booklist Review
The modern poet freely imagines Cleopatra's personal history in this ``verse novel.'' Inspired by a Rembrandt sketch in which Cleopatra is portrayed as a particular nude woman sitting on an unmade bed, Chase-Riboud felt free to imagine that the Egyptian queen was someone one could actually know. Cleopatra does not, as one might expect, become a banal modern woman; rather, she is set in motion in history Alexandria in 41 B.C. is no longer impossible to imagine because of the way she moves and because, as Antony says, ``The roll of your hips was a tremendous event.'' Cleopatra is passionate, she is jealous, she is powerful this is not news, but here it becomes specific. When Chase-Riboud is not specific, these sonnets are not as effective. But there are imagined moments of real beauty and power. Here is Cleopatra watching Antony: ``Touching your map of the world with a peacock feather, / Murmuring quietly this . . . and this . . . and this . . .[FJ]and / this . . . / Sinai, Arabia, Samaria, Jericho, Galilee. . . .'' FW. 811'.54 [OCLC] 86-31220
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Review by Booklist Review
