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Oracles: A Pilgrimage
The Oracles of the ancient world spoke for the gods, they spoke for the future: but they could not speak for themselves. Here, their voices bubble up from the depths, enraged and sardonic, sorrowing and wild, finding themselves on new ground -- scattered across the American continent, marking a path for the seeker to follow, from New England universities to Hawaiian volcanoes, from dilapidated factories to Chinatown kitchens, from the Old East to the New West...
84 pages, Paperback
First published May 20, 2005
623 people want to read
About the author
Catherynne M. Valente
255 books7,779 followersCatherynne M. Valente was born on Cinco de Mayo, 1979 in Seattle, WA, but grew up in in the wheatgrass paradise of Northern California. She graduated from high school at age 15, going on to UC San Diego and Edinburgh University, receiving her B.A. in Classics with an emphasis in Ancient Greek Linguistics. She then drifted away from her M.A. program and into a long residence in the concrete and camphor wilds of Japan.
She currently lives in Maine with her partner, two dogs, and three cats, having drifted back to America and the mythic frontier of the Midwest.
She currently lives in Maine with her partner, two dogs, and three cats, having drifted back to America and the mythic frontier of the Midwest.
Ratings & Reviews
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
March 12, 2016
I'm ready to break up with you, Valente.
Your wordcraft is all
Pottery Barn rococo,
tin scrollwork acanthus
ready to inflict its unique character on some unsuspecting ecru wall.
It is dropping French words in casual conversation
after six months in Paris
because,
well,
how can you not.
It is flaming your fucking organic orange zest
at a bar
with the bartender right there
as you explain
to your date, your neighbor, anyone watching,
the alchemy of light oil caramelization and delicate flavor enhancement.
And you know what?
Have your one and a half stars (because language), but I am done.
Done.
This is the end.
Finem. Tέλος (two can play this game, Valente). Hetay Ndeay.
It's you, not me.
I want intoxication, maenadic abandon, but you keep giggling and watering down the wine.
Your wordcraft is all
Pottery Barn rococo,
tin scrollwork acanthus
ready to inflict its unique character on some unsuspecting ecru wall.
It is dropping French words in casual conversation
after six months in Paris
because,
well,
how can you not.
It is flaming your fucking organic orange zest
at a bar
with the bartender right there
as you explain
to your date, your neighbor, anyone watching,
the alchemy of light oil caramelization and delicate flavor enhancement.
And you know what?
Have your one and a half stars (because language), but I am done.
Done.
This is the end.
Finem. Tέλος (two can play this game, Valente). Hetay Ndeay.
It's you, not me.
I want intoxication, maenadic abandon, but you keep giggling and watering down the wine.
June 3, 2014
I LOVE Valente, but I'm a much bigger fan of poetical prose than poetry itself. I guess it's not too surprising that this kind of seems like a missed opportunity to have a novella rather than a series of linked poems.
Despite that, I loved how Valente made American oracles that used divination methods fit the cities that they lived in -- slot machine oracles for Las Vegas, factory oracles for Detroit, snow oracles for Alaska. It was enormously creative, which is exactly what I expect out of Valente.
Despite that, I loved how Valente made American oracles that used divination methods fit the cities that they lived in -- slot machine oracles for Las Vegas, factory oracles for Detroit, snow oracles for Alaska. It was enormously creative, which is exactly what I expect out of Valente.
May 13, 2017
Apple, peach blossoms in the scented waters
floating like stockade ships
in honeyed wine. And a single rose like a wound,
flesh as soft as tears.
It took me a while to decide, if I want to give this book three or four stars (in the end I settled for four stars).
There is no denying that Valente knows how to write; the language in this poetry collection is exquisite and it's truly inspiring how she can paint vivid imagines with mere words. Sometimes though I felt that it was all a little bit too much and the language became unnecessarily pretentious. I’m somebody who really enjoys lyrical overwritten poetry (and prose, for that matter), but if I have to reread a poem several times just to understand what the poet was trying to say, it has gone too far. This sadly happened with a few poems in this collection.
I also have to say that I enjoyed the prologue and the epilogue much more than a lot of the poems and I really wish that instead of a poetry collection, Valente would have put together a short story collection. I think her writing style and use of language really fits prose writing better.
Still, Oracles: A Pilgrimage is a fantastic poetry collection and I hope more people will take the time to read it.
floating like stockade ships
in honeyed wine. And a single rose like a wound,
flesh as soft as tears.
It took me a while to decide, if I want to give this book three or four stars (in the end I settled for four stars).
There is no denying that Valente knows how to write; the language in this poetry collection is exquisite and it's truly inspiring how she can paint vivid imagines with mere words. Sometimes though I felt that it was all a little bit too much and the language became unnecessarily pretentious. I’m somebody who really enjoys lyrical overwritten poetry (and prose, for that matter), but if I have to reread a poem several times just to understand what the poet was trying to say, it has gone too far. This sadly happened with a few poems in this collection.
I also have to say that I enjoyed the prologue and the epilogue much more than a lot of the poems and I really wish that instead of a poetry collection, Valente would have put together a short story collection. I think her writing style and use of language really fits prose writing better.
Still, Oracles: A Pilgrimage is a fantastic poetry collection and I hope more people will take the time to read it.
October 29, 2020
It's beautiful, I mean, of course it is - it's Catherynne Valente. And I acknowledge that the idea is interesting.
I just don't like poetry. And this is definitely poetry. I've tried to like poetry for years. But, yeah, no.
Not sad I read it, glad it was fast however.
I just don't like poetry. And this is definitely poetry. I've tried to like poetry for years. But, yeah, no.
Not sad I read it, glad it was fast however.
August 15, 2020
Estos textos parecen más bien ejercicios de estilo, muy personales, muy contextuales. Se nota ese deseo de escribir desde una perspectiva tan femenina, de incorporar referencias variadas con un lenguaje hermoso y casi poético sobre cosas cotidianas. Reinventar las experiencias comunes en algo casi mitológico.
Reconozco algunos elementos que son característicos de una Catherynne más tardía, pero en un estado más primitivo y con una estructura más laxa. Siempre me ha fascinado su lenguaje y creo que aunque en algunos puntos parece ir por el rumbo de historias posteriores (en particular me recordó a dos de mis libros favoritos de ella, The Orphan's Tales) pero de forma más desorganizada.
No creo que sea un libro para cualquiera, ni una manera de empezar a conocer a la autora. Como un pequeño souvenir de su historia en el mundo de las letras, es algo muy interesante y grato de tener a la mano.
Reconozco algunos elementos que son característicos de una Catherynne más tardía, pero en un estado más primitivo y con una estructura más laxa. Siempre me ha fascinado su lenguaje y creo que aunque en algunos puntos parece ir por el rumbo de historias posteriores (en particular me recordó a dos de mis libros favoritos de ella, The Orphan's Tales) pero de forma más desorganizada.
No creo que sea un libro para cualquiera, ni una manera de empezar a conocer a la autora. Como un pequeño souvenir de su historia en el mundo de las letras, es algo muy interesante y grato de tener a la mano.
November 25, 2021
I found Oracles: A Pilgrimage a good deal more accessible than Valente's previous poetry collection, Apocrypha, but every bit as rich. The overarching theme (oracles like that of Delphi, reimagined in various cities across the United States) is more defined and more engaging, threading the poems together, and exploring various forms of divination, from the conventional - the I Ching in Chinatown, and later, as the lens zooms out and we sweep across America, the Tarot - through to the more unorthodox: in Las Vegas the future is revealed through coins and dice, for example. This thematic reskinning reminded me of the different techniques for interpreting Dust in Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials, and as a lapsed reader of the cards myself, I appreciated Valente's references to the Major Arcana, and her description in the Author's Note of her time working as a Tarot reader in Rhode Island, which makes this collection more of a personal reflection.
My favourite of Valente's imagined Pythias is the Bostonian; a poem containing Newton's gravitational law - expressed formulaically - is of course automatically exceptional, and the whisper of a story it tells is beautiful. The diversity of the sorority of Sibyls depicted, with their shared gift of prophesy and burden of anonymity - revealing only the secrets of others - makes for a thought-provoking and enchanting body of work.
As ever, I am unqualified to comment on the technical quality of the verse itself, and being neither an American nor a classicist myself, must acknowledge the layers of meaning that have surely been lost on me, but I thoroughly enjoyed the collection - its imagery, its tone, and its loose, lyrical, female-centered narrative. These are poems to return to and savour.
My favourite of Valente's imagined Pythias is the Bostonian; a poem containing Newton's gravitational law - expressed formulaically - is of course automatically exceptional, and the whisper of a story it tells is beautiful. The diversity of the sorority of Sibyls depicted, with their shared gift of prophesy and burden of anonymity - revealing only the secrets of others - makes for a thought-provoking and enchanting body of work.
As ever, I am unqualified to comment on the technical quality of the verse itself, and being neither an American nor a classicist myself, must acknowledge the layers of meaning that have surely been lost on me, but I thoroughly enjoyed the collection - its imagery, its tone, and its loose, lyrical, female-centered narrative. These are poems to return to and savour.
July 10, 2019
I wish I could give this book 10 stars; this collection was absolutely magical.
January 1, 2020
i bought this book when i was still in my valente honeymoon phase, which was a while ago. i still have a lot of fondness for how over the top baroque her style can get, and obviously respect anyone who knows the name of every single color ever, but it doesn’t have the same magic anymore, and the immersive lushness that i loved so much when i first started reading her has started to go stale. still a pretty enjoyable book.
September 19, 2022
Maybe 3 and a half stars for some obscurity that I can always do without. Lush language and beautiful descriptions, very good ideas/creative concepts.
March 5, 2017
3.5 stars. I think this is the sort of poetry that benefits from more background knowledge than I have at this time.
December 30, 2008
The concept was great behind this book and it is beautifully written, but, I did enjoy the prologue and epilogue better than the actual poetry. Yes, I knew it was a book of poetry, and yes, I know that I am probably offending a lot of people now. I like thought provoking, I enjoy a good metaphor, and maybe it was me, but, only every third or fourth poem resonated with understanding. There were beautiful stunning lines full of rich imagery, but even those were lost within themselves. The overall theme and meaning behind this collection is great but the actual poetry did not hold together with the greater theme.
September 30, 2015
I love Valente's images, but have trouble reading her dense prose continuously. I'm not saying it's bad...it's just hard going for me. So I really really liked this book of poetry, which is a bunch of images strung together with minimal frills. Who can forget the possessed factory of the oracle of Detroit? The sun burns its alphabet into the sky and the wind has tattooed hands to deal tarot, while oracles with green sparkly hair dance in hanging golden cages in the nightclub.
The inclusion of ancient Greek phrases in the original alphabet was cool, but somewhat obscure. But there's not very much of it.
A really good and very memorable book of poetry.
The inclusion of ancient Greek phrases in the original alphabet was cool, but somewhat obscure. But there's not very much of it.
A really good and very memorable book of poetry.
December 1, 2013
This is an exceptional book! mainly because nowadays it is such a rear occurrence when you can be personally touched by poetry... this book does it, it stays with you and give you so much more then just a good read.
June 2, 2015
A brilliant book of poems, telling a strange story of oracles and women.
July 27, 2010
A poetic telling of the modern oracles of America. Clever and I liked the regional differences.
January 25, 2011
Exquisite.
December 25, 2025
The poems in this volume have so much life and vibrancy ... Valente has such an amazing voice. I didn't like some of the framing and imagery, but that's probably on me.
January 19, 2014
Lovely.
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews