Time's Fool

Library Journal

Jerome's narrative sequence of sonnets is actually a glossing, one by one, of Shakespeare's own. As Jerome has it, the poems tell of a New York Playwright's troubled relationship with a handsome heir to the Howard Hughes fortune; of the shenanigans of a Rival Poet to win this Young Man's patronage and body; and of the torrid love of a Dark Lady, a reviewer of plays for The Village Voice , whose sexual favors are shared by the Playwright and the Young Man. Jerome has an ear for modern idiom and a good sense of the classical posture of the sonnet. Still, these parodies are calculated, labored, and ultimately unrewarding. It is an ambitious project with no payoff. There are small moments, smiles and shocks, and bits of catchy narrative but hardly the self-evolving bolts of wisdom and language craft that is ever evident in the Bard's poetry. More to be valued for its idea and intention than for its poetry.-- Louis McKee, Painted Bride Arts Ctr., Philadelphia