Oracles from the Poets

About this book

A reader asks a question, opens the book and lets a line of poetry answer. The reply might offer comfort, warn against rash action or turn an ordinary decision into a small literary oracle.

Caroline Gilman arranges extracts from poets for this form of bibliomancy, giving familiar verse a peculiar second life. The method depends on chance and the meaning the questioner chooses to find in the answer. Its appeal comes from the intimate moment when words written for one purpose suddenly seem to address another, sometimes with surprising force.