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Oracle: Poems by Cate Marvin
A witty and elegiac new collection from the author of "exhilarating, fierce [and] powerful” verse (Robert Pinsky, Washington Post ). The speakers of Oracle occupy the outer-borough cityscape of New York's Staten Island, where they move through worlds glittering with refuse and peopled by ghosts―of a dead lover, of a friend lost to suicide, of a dog with glistening eyes. Marvin's haunting, passionate poems explore themes of loss, of the vulnerability of womanhood in a world hostile to it, and of the fraught, strangely compelling landscape of adolescence.
- GenresPoetry
Unknown Binding
First published March 9, 2015
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231 people want to read
About the author
Cate Marvin
12 books42 followersCate Marvin's first book, World's Tallest Disaster, was chosen by Robert Pinksy for the 2000 Kathryn A. Morton Prize and published by Sarabande Books in 2001. In 2002, she received the Kate Tufts Discovery Prize. Her poems have appeared in The New England Review, Poetry, The Kenyon Review, Fence, The Paris Review, The Cincinnati Review, Slate, Verse, Boston Review, and Ninth Letter. She is co-editor with poet Michael Dumanis of the anthology Legitimate Dangers: American Poets of the New Century (Sarabande Books, 2006). Her second book of poems, Fragment of the Head of a Queen, was published by Sarabande in August 2007. A recent Whiting Award recipient and 2007 NYFA Gregory Millard Fellow, she teaches poetry writing in Lesley University's low-residency MFA program and is an associate professor in creative writing at the College of Staten Island, City University of New York.
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
April 26, 2019
Had to read this for a book report for my poetry course. The writing is horrendous, the autobiographical aspect of the poem feels forced, the imagery lacking and lastly, these poems left no emotional impact on me - which is something any effective poem should be able to do. Pass.
March 1, 2017
There are some poetry books that you just sense the person would have goddamn *died* if they didn't get them out. Brian Teare's The Room Where I Was Born is one. Tory Dent's HIV, Mon Amour is another, as is C.D. Wright's Translations of the Gospel Back Into Tongues.
And Cate Marvin's Oracle, which has such a furor of sonic invention, effortless rhetorical mastery, and tectonic lyric darkness that I remember once again what the stakes for poetry can be.
What I love about this book is that the metaphors acquire this primal rumble (a mixture of their subtle embedding within the text of the poems themselves, and their booming, underworld flair). A lot of lyricism happens in the tremulous upper register—Oracle has bass notes that rewrite your inner ear.
If you're not roaring about this book to strangers in the streets, you're not doing your job.
And Cate Marvin's Oracle, which has such a furor of sonic invention, effortless rhetorical mastery, and tectonic lyric darkness that I remember once again what the stakes for poetry can be.
What I love about this book is that the metaphors acquire this primal rumble (a mixture of their subtle embedding within the text of the poems themselves, and their booming, underworld flair). A lot of lyricism happens in the tremulous upper register—Oracle has bass notes that rewrite your inner ear.
If you're not roaring about this book to strangers in the streets, you're not doing your job.
January 9, 2016
A truly fantastic collection with such a focus on sound. Grateful to have heard Marvin read some of these aloud before endeavoring on this book because the cadence is so important. Like falling down the rabbit hole and arriving at home. Would most definitely recommend to others.
April 2, 2015
Fuck. Yes.
Every one of these hilarious poems unsettled my brain.
Poetry does THIS, people. THIS.
Every one of these hilarious poems unsettled my brain.
Poetry does THIS, people. THIS.
December 15, 2015
Holy shit. I keep reading Cate Marvin thinking, "This is good, but not great." This collection is something else, one of the best I've ever read. I'm kind of speechless, so go read it yourself.
October 13, 2025
Marvin writes walking the line of spontaneity and chiseled prose, segmented through verse. The result is a feminist collection of poetry that surprises and derails again and again in the best way.
July 19, 2017
A 2014 collection of poems that have a disjunctive rhythm, a stop and start
pacing with a lonely anguish nearly throughout. Despite that description,
it is a curious book full of startling and unexpected pleasures. "Memory in
Plain English" is a fun parody of a famous Edna St Vincent Millay poem
about going on a ferry and being very merry. Of course, Marvin's poem is
not so gay. The first poem in the book is "On the Ineptitude of Certain
Hurricanes" which is a clever comment on emotional weather. The epigraph
to the collection is from Federico Garcia Lorca: I am coming back
for my wings."
pacing with a lonely anguish nearly throughout. Despite that description,
it is a curious book full of startling and unexpected pleasures. "Memory in
Plain English" is a fun parody of a famous Edna St Vincent Millay poem
about going on a ferry and being very merry. Of course, Marvin's poem is
not so gay. The first poem in the book is "On the Ineptitude of Certain
Hurricanes" which is a clever comment on emotional weather. The epigraph
to the collection is from Federico Garcia Lorca: I am coming back
for my wings."
January 12, 2016
There are some very dense poems here, and I'll likely go back to read again. Her poems about teen life (retrospectively) were excellent.
October 23, 2019
5/5
i loved this book SO MUCH
!!!!!!
picked it up randomly and didn't expect to but man. especially loved the high school/adolescence related poems.
some favorites:
- Dead Girl Gang Bang (!!!)
- After Aftermath
- Chilly Voice in the Tropics (!!!)
- Let the Day Perish
- High School as The Picture of Dorian Gray (!!!)
- My First Husband Was My Last
- Dogsbody
- On The Ineptitude of Certain Hurricanes
- The Apparition
quotes:
"You're a walking elegy for yourself. Yeah,
you're one inch worse than being in love
with the dead. You don't know the dead
are perfected. They teach us what we had
wished we'd learned when they were not
dead. You, crazed in fear of death, refuse
to know that conversations with the dead
are divine. Being dead, they are not forced
to console or confide. They'll never report
It's been a bad year to any stranger they've
just met at a cockail party. They are one-
way walkie-talkies echoing our love back
at us. They are satisfied shaking our dreams
out like tinfoil, smashing vases as we naively
enter into doomed telephone conversations
with those they wish us not to love because
the dead know better than us who's worthy
of our love and this is because they love us.
Their breath fogs up our mirrors, their deer
appear nose-close at dawn, slip their white
tails right out from sight, the dead are less
than obvious. It may be they like to give us
a bit of a fright. God knows they cannot help
but remember. In this way, they are like us,
for they are alive. Unlike you, who introduce
your eulogy at every plastic event, they've no
tombstones on their brows! And I'm up to my
bones with tragedy, yours being at the top of
my list. If you listened, the dead would suggest
you take a pill. Don't you know they want back
into this life, that they want to vote in the next
election? It's no wonder I could never love you
better than a ghost. You're a trembling mess!
Unlike you, it's the dead who've been dimming
the lights, sewing their sequins onto my dreams.
It's the real dead who know how to love me back.
—Elegy For a Famous Author Now Asleep in Brooklyn
"It's a kill myself kind of day,
the sun itself refusing to lend
its flattering light to the skin
that makes my face, its eyes
set as faucets to gaze on a sea
churning its organs up upon
the shore lit beneath a hurt,"
—Dread Beach
"Walking very quickly makes it quite impossible
to note the lousy perfection of the stars. It's why I walk
as if everything from me might be snatched should
I slow down, as if even the stars might be whisked
out from the fumes of sky, as thunderclaps, cracks
my own house in half, an egg chipped at the edge..."
—I'll Be Back
"High School was us and we. We leaned our grammar there. Became devised by bells sawing halls sharp as number two pencils: we grew thin, grew dark as men in its hallways, we grew up on men, our breasts their bears, their beards our breasts, while we cracked open beer cans in the Girls' Room, swug down foam minutes before walking into Homeroom. I was known to be dumb, detentioned, a kill myself kind of girl, but it was you who shot herself in the head. What kind of girl shoots herself in the head? You wanted a quality kill? Take some sleeping pills, spare your mother the blood-grief. You always took the hit for me. Turned around in your seat. Did you hear what they said? Yes, some of us are intending to go to college. Loser grief. Then the tarry hot of the parking lot rose up, black, promising me any boy's face: when we wanted what we wanted. To be pretty. Which then meant famous.
—High School As a Dead Girl
i loved this book SO MUCH
!!!!!!
picked it up randomly and didn't expect to but man. especially loved the high school/adolescence related poems.
some favorites:
- Dead Girl Gang Bang (!!!)
- After Aftermath
- Chilly Voice in the Tropics (!!!)
- Let the Day Perish
- High School as The Picture of Dorian Gray (!!!)
- My First Husband Was My Last
- Dogsbody
- On The Ineptitude of Certain Hurricanes
- The Apparition
quotes:
"You're a walking elegy for yourself. Yeah,
you're one inch worse than being in love
with the dead. You don't know the dead
are perfected. They teach us what we had
wished we'd learned when they were not
dead. You, crazed in fear of death, refuse
to know that conversations with the dead
are divine. Being dead, they are not forced
to console or confide. They'll never report
It's been a bad year to any stranger they've
just met at a cockail party. They are one-
way walkie-talkies echoing our love back
at us. They are satisfied shaking our dreams
out like tinfoil, smashing vases as we naively
enter into doomed telephone conversations
with those they wish us not to love because
the dead know better than us who's worthy
of our love and this is because they love us.
Their breath fogs up our mirrors, their deer
appear nose-close at dawn, slip their white
tails right out from sight, the dead are less
than obvious. It may be they like to give us
a bit of a fright. God knows they cannot help
but remember. In this way, they are like us,
for they are alive. Unlike you, who introduce
your eulogy at every plastic event, they've no
tombstones on their brows! And I'm up to my
bones with tragedy, yours being at the top of
my list. If you listened, the dead would suggest
you take a pill. Don't you know they want back
into this life, that they want to vote in the next
election? It's no wonder I could never love you
better than a ghost. You're a trembling mess!
Unlike you, it's the dead who've been dimming
the lights, sewing their sequins onto my dreams.
It's the real dead who know how to love me back.
—Elegy For a Famous Author Now Asleep in Brooklyn
"It's a kill myself kind of day,
the sun itself refusing to lend
its flattering light to the skin
that makes my face, its eyes
set as faucets to gaze on a sea
churning its organs up upon
the shore lit beneath a hurt,"
—Dread Beach
"Walking very quickly makes it quite impossible
to note the lousy perfection of the stars. It's why I walk
as if everything from me might be snatched should
I slow down, as if even the stars might be whisked
out from the fumes of sky, as thunderclaps, cracks
my own house in half, an egg chipped at the edge..."
—I'll Be Back
"High School was us and we. We leaned our grammar there. Became devised by bells sawing halls sharp as number two pencils: we grew thin, grew dark as men in its hallways, we grew up on men, our breasts their bears, their beards our breasts, while we cracked open beer cans in the Girls' Room, swug down foam minutes before walking into Homeroom. I was known to be dumb, detentioned, a kill myself kind of girl, but it was you who shot herself in the head. What kind of girl shoots herself in the head? You wanted a quality kill? Take some sleeping pills, spare your mother the blood-grief. You always took the hit for me. Turned around in your seat. Did you hear what they said? Yes, some of us are intending to go to college. Loser grief. Then the tarry hot of the parking lot rose up, black, promising me any boy's face: when we wanted what we wanted. To be pretty. Which then meant famous.
—High School As a Dead Girl
April 7, 2020
Some absolutely killer poems in this collection! LOVE!
"It's a kill myself kind of day,
the sun itself refusing to lend
its flattering light to the skin
that makes my face, its eyes
set as facets to gaze on a sea
churning its organs up upon
the shore lit beneath a hurt,
where the gassy water's salt
fattens and deposits its small
wealth of dead crabs clawless
among stunted mussel shells,
beach glass the worn lip from
Mad Dog, and someone's lost
his pants three times by three
wave-worn rocks, by the pyre
of piss-filled Gatorade bottles,
discarded tampon applicators,
two combs jagged with teeth.
I died here once. Before nothing
mattered. So I pocket sea glass.
In another life, it'd have cut my
thigh. But all that's here rusts.
A grocery cart estranged upon
rock. Mattress coils deranged
with fishing net, and the plastic
bunting that once plied hospital
beds is now a white zipper twist
round a pylon staking remnant
pavement to sand this worn-at
children's hospital a someone
said let the sea take away so as
not to have to cart its ugly onto
the inland. And when the dead
began to matter was when my
wrists began to stagger, beach-
comb sea glass. Dragging their
blood-nets all over. Back then,
I got my gift of fading into walls
simply by leaning. First time I
saw him, I knew I'd been done in.
See, your salt-crumpled pants
legs dead as sea crabs, thick tar
muddle glued beneath sun next
to a tire rind, that half-full bottle
of Visine lying on sand in wait as
if to proffer its saline kisses to my
driest eye: froth your terrible past!
O, but if you only knew. Back then,
I was so much better at being dead."
"It's a kill myself kind of day,
the sun itself refusing to lend
its flattering light to the skin
that makes my face, its eyes
set as facets to gaze on a sea
churning its organs up upon
the shore lit beneath a hurt,
where the gassy water's salt
fattens and deposits its small
wealth of dead crabs clawless
among stunted mussel shells,
beach glass the worn lip from
Mad Dog, and someone's lost
his pants three times by three
wave-worn rocks, by the pyre
of piss-filled Gatorade bottles,
discarded tampon applicators,
two combs jagged with teeth.
I died here once. Before nothing
mattered. So I pocket sea glass.
In another life, it'd have cut my
thigh. But all that's here rusts.
A grocery cart estranged upon
rock. Mattress coils deranged
with fishing net, and the plastic
bunting that once plied hospital
beds is now a white zipper twist
round a pylon staking remnant
pavement to sand this worn-at
children's hospital a someone
said let the sea take away so as
not to have to cart its ugly onto
the inland. And when the dead
began to matter was when my
wrists began to stagger, beach-
comb sea glass. Dragging their
blood-nets all over. Back then,
I got my gift of fading into walls
simply by leaning. First time I
saw him, I knew I'd been done in.
See, your salt-crumpled pants
legs dead as sea crabs, thick tar
muddle glued beneath sun next
to a tire rind, that half-full bottle
of Visine lying on sand in wait as
if to proffer its saline kisses to my
driest eye: froth your terrible past!
O, but if you only knew. Back then,
I was so much better at being dead."
August 17, 2022
with some absolute whoppers in this collection (the high school poems hurt me in the good&bad way you want poetry to) i can definitely see myself seeking out more by Marvin. this is a painful and trigger-warning book, but the dexterous use of language, especially about female adolescence, is admirable. big new fan of hers.
October 8, 2024
by all accounts i thought i'd love this collection but it really didn't click with me at any point. there was some acerbity, some hauntings that i found exciting, but i mostly found it dense and disconnected. clearly a personal work but not one i could grasp onto
December 23, 2017
Amazing, beautiful. and achingly poignant.
November 19, 2019
Another one of those chapbooks where it’s impossible to pick my favorite poem...
Read
October 15, 2021eh.
loved the Sylvia Plath referencing, though!
loved the Sylvia Plath referencing, though!
February 1, 2017
Unfairly, Cate Marvin's Oracle came right after I read Lawrence Raab's Mistaking Each Other for Ghosts which I thought was a superb collection of poetry. However, Oracle, not so much. It's not a bad collection. Marvin has a frantic and brutal way of writing and invoking deep feelings of anger or wonder. Plus, her imagery? Great.
Some of the poems that were raw were Dead Girl Gang Bang, The Apparition, An Etiquette for Eyes, My First Husband Was My Last, and On the Ineptitude of Certain Hurricanes. The others, well, the only just now coined phrase "hipster pretentious" comes to mind. Especially with some of Marvin's titles.
Some of the poems that were raw were Dead Girl Gang Bang, The Apparition, An Etiquette for Eyes, My First Husband Was My Last, and On the Ineptitude of Certain Hurricanes. The others, well, the only just now coined phrase "hipster pretentious" comes to mind. Especially with some of Marvin's titles.
February 10, 2017
This book was okay, but I wasn't really impressed. As a whole, I didn't enjoy it like I thought I would. Favorites in this collection were "Yellow Rubber Gloves," "Dead Girl Gang Bang," "After Aftermath," and "High School in Suzhou."
August 1, 2016
Soft 4
August 28, 2016
Though this book contains many exceptional poems, the high school series was truly delightful.
October 11, 2016
Damn, this book is dope.
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews