Our bodies bouquet out 92
Our flesh has stayed too long 116
Peacock 197
Peony petals floated upon the rumpled white square 28
Politeness forces one into Nothing 322
Politics and War forced me into this 124
Ponies 162
Ptolemy VII, murdered by his father and uncle, who had 85
Resting on your right flank 74
Saffron light 168
Shirley of Pinellas Park 257
Sing to me 183
Smiling Mao, Mao smiling 156
Sneaking around corners 157
Standing 147
Stars that have already die 335
Stranger when you place your delicate hands on me, write your 259
Sullen blizzard of white linen 260
Swimming 367
Tend my body 72
Tender-faced soldiers walking hand in hand 158
The absence of color 266
The amulet you gave me out of love which was 115
The black beast telephone is at hand 315
The daily demons gather round, slave merchants 121
The divorce of Comrade Wu and Comrade Lui 148
The fetish you gave me out of love which was 320
The hordes of wrath 47
The lightness of my whoredom 349
The lover’s total death in your cool limbs 79
The moon rises over your left shoulder 80
The poet is one who loves 330
The rains didn’t come in October 45
The shape of Dignity 165
The world’s savagements 318
There is a Hindu saying 255
This is the first day 226
To be a historian 339
To waste love is a mortal sin like wasting bread 105
Tonight let us lie here love 81
Tropical fish are the most practical of pets 300
Under the Caprician chalk moon 23
We aged a thousand years 296
We entered a cathedral 371
We met coming in opposite directions on the Rue de Rennes 317
What about a flower for your Lady? 308
What made me take this path when there are so many others? 329
Whatever violence 83
When the last cock crows and the last bell chimes and 216
White pigeon pairs 164
White porcelain ink pot 189
White porcelain ribbon 196
White porcelain vase 203
Whose victory was it? 38
Why can’t love be 233
Why won’t you sing for me? 89
Winged by my multifeathered flexed knees 63
Without a ripple or a crease 200
Woe our good Saige is dead, who will now wear the burning flag 340
You 235
You 236
You are a dangerous man 331
You are a dangerous woman 67
You are no musician 326
You rise 328
You shopped for Death 334
You tell me to go lie down on the bed 35
Your birthday falls 230
Your mouth floats 77
Your mouth tastes of sweet steel 70
Index of poem titles
A Postmark From Where You Are 282
A White Space 284
Akhmatova 332
Akhmatova’s Centotaph 38
Alexander Calder 327
All Reverence to Her 216
An Almost-Full Moon 195
And Out of Love 179
Anna 131
Anne d’ Harnoncourt—1943-2008 313
Anne Sexton 334
Antonio Calderara 330
Antony V 67
Antony VI 69
Antony VIII 71
Antony X 73
Antony XII 75
Antony XV 78
Antony XXIV 89
Antony XXVII 92
Antony XXIX 94
Antony XXXIII 399
Antony XXXIV 100
Antony XXXVIII 105
Antony XL 108
Antony XLI 109
Antony XLIV 113
Antony XLV 114
Antony XLVI 115
Antony XLVIII 117
Antony L 119
Antony’s Reply XXXVI 103
Antony’s Tomb LII 121
Antony & Cleopatra XXII 86
Antony & Cleopatra XXV 90
Antony & Cleopatra XVIII 81
Any Day Now 246
Arabesque to Frank’s Rivers 41
Atlantic City 308
Bastille Day For Gayle Jones 343
Bathers 223
Been There, Done That 297
Blood Sacrifice 247
Body Poised 184
Breaking Out 201
Bullock’s Liverpool Museum 354
Camellias 371
Capri 20
Castor Semenya’s Ovaries 323
Chinese Seal, 166
Cleopatra (To Her Eunuch) XLII 111
Cleopatra & Antony XIV 77
Cleopatra I 63
Cleopatra II 64
Cleopatra III 65
Cleopatra IV 66
Cleopatra VII 70
Cleopatra IX 72
Cleopatra XI 74
Cleopatra XIII 76
Cleopatra XVI 79
Cleopatra XVII 80
Cleopatra XIX 83
Cleopatra XX 84
Cleopatra XXI 85
Cleopatra XXIII 88
Cleopatra XXVI 91
Cleopatra XXVIII 93
Cleopatra XXX 95
Cleopatra XXXI 97
Cleopatra XXXII 398
Cleopatra XXXIX 107
Cleopatra XLIX 118
Cleopatra LI 120
Cleopatra LIII 122
Cleopatra LIV 123
Cleopatra LV 124
Cleopatra LVI 125
Cleopatra’s Letter XXXV 102
Cleopatra’s Letter XLIII 112
Cleopatra’s Mausoleum XLVII 116
Cleopatra’s Reply to Antony XXXVII 104
Come With Me 220
Curving Like a Colorless Vasarely 191
D-Day Requiem 244
Dawn Is Cracked 188
Dead Stars 335
Death Sentence I 252
Don’t Move Your Arm 199
Earthquake 50?
Elegy 257
Elephant Dung 306
Elnora 336
Famine I 45
Famine II 47
Flying a Kite 159
For Alberto Giacometti 321
For Alice Walker 320
For Elaine Brown 318
For Emily Dickinson 315
For Louise Neveson 322
For Mary Mccarthy 317
For Toni Morrison 319
Galileo’s Moon 204
Genesis 242
Gnostic Writings First Century AD 256
Going to Memphis 211
Han Shroud 174
Hangchow 164
Harrar 249
Heads Bent 180
Hela 31
Herons on the Roof 299
How Do I Say 305
I Awoke in the Shaved and Sullen Heat 279
I Claim the Beauty of You 280
I Dip This Pen 234
I Gather 187
I Had Waited … 281
I Kept Them All 287
I Saw a Chinese Lady … 155
I’ve Traveled 264
If I Long for that Oasis 225
If One Sets One’s Foot 160
In Darkness I Lie 181
Inhaling 255
Irenishka 342
Jazz 324
John Williams 337
Ken Noland 331
Keo Sirisomphone 367
La Chenillere I 235
La Chenillere II 236
La Chenillere III 237
La Chenillere IV 239
Le Lit 260
Leave the door open
27
Let Me Lie Down In Red 185
Letter From Mongolia 168
Lily Pond Road 307
Love Can Die 262
Loving Mathilde 226
Mao Waved To The People 161
Mao’s Organ 55
Mark Rothko 326
Mathilde 228
Mathilde ii 230
Mathilde iii 231
Mathilde: History Lesson 229
Mongolian Dog 167
On Hearing of a Death in Prison 361
On the Terrace at 11
Nan Chihtze Street 147
One Hundred And Ten Weeks 232
Organdy Curtains Shifting 193
Performance 295
Plutarch LVII 127
Ponies … 162
Reincarnation 254
Requiem 351
Saige is Dead 340
Shanghai 158
Sing To Me 183
Sir James Stirling 1929-1991 338
Smiling Mao 156
Sneaking Around Corners 157
Soft-Shell Crabs Steaming 158
Sonia 339
Special Delivery Letter 285
Tai Lake Stone 165
Tchai 163
The Affliction of Troy Davis 51
The Albino 266
The Ani Papyrus 310
The Answer 294
The Carrellian 197
The Crying Room 344
The Divorce of Comrade Wu and Comrade Lui 148
The Duchesse of Alba 268
The Han Princess of Via Jacopino 29
The Lightness of My Whoredom 349
The Moon Drawn By Galileo 205
The Rape of a Chambermaid 35
The Seal 259
The Well of the Precious Concubine Pearl 171
To Gloria 301
Translucent Crater of the World 203
Tropical Fish 300
Under the Caprician Chalk Moon 23
Untitled 328
Untitled I 329
Virum 258
We Aged a Thousand Years 296
Wednesdays in Mississippi 271
White Peony Petals 28
White Porcelain Ink Pot 189
White Porcelain Ribbon 196
Why Can’t Love Be? 233
Why Did We Leave Zanzibar? 357
Winter Flood 25
Without A Ripple Or A Crease 200
BARBARA CHASE-RIBOUD’S first collection of poetry, From Memphis & Peking (1974), was edited by Toni Morrison and released to critical acclaim. Her second collection, Portrait of a Nude Woman as Cleopatra (1988), was awarded the Carl Sandburg Poetry Prize for Best American Poet. Her five historical novels include the bestselling Sally Hemings (1979), Valide (1986), Echo of Lions (1989), The President’s Daughter (1994), and Hottentot Venus (2004). She won the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize for Best Novel by an American Woman for Sally Hemings. In 1996, she received a Knighthood in Arts and Letters from the French government in joint recognition of her literary and artistic achievements. Chase-Riboud is a renowned sculptor whose works belong to major museum collections around the world. She was honored with a rare living-artist personal exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2000. In 2013, a major survey of her sculpture and drawings was held at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and then traveled to the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive. Born in Philadelphia of Canadian-American descent and a graduate of Yale University School of Art, she is the recipient of numerous fellowships and honorary degrees. She lives in Paris, Rome, and New York.
Also by BARBARA CHASE-RIBOUD
POETRY
Portrait of a Nude Woman as Cleopatra (1974)
From Memphis & Peking (1987)
FICTION
Hottentot Venus (2004)
The President’s Daughter (1994)
Roman egyptien, in French (1994)
Echo of Lions (1989)
Valide: A Novel of the Harem (1986)
Sally Hemings (1979)
MONOGRAPHS
Barbara Chase-Riboud: The Malcolm X Steles (2013)
Abrading Boundaries: Reconsidering Barbara Chase-Riboud’s Sculpture, Fiction, and Poetry (2009)
Barbara Chase-Riboud: Sculptor (1999)
LIBRETTOS
Egypt’s Nights (2008); Music by Leslie Burrs
Cleopatra: A Melologue (1987); Music by Anthony Vores
Everytime a Knot Is Undone, a God Is Released Page 21