Otherworldly Journeys

ORACULAR TRANSMISSIONS

By Etel Adnan and Lynn Marie Kirby with contributions by Denise Newman and Jordan Stein

Published by X Artists’ Books, South Pasadena, 2020

The ancient priestesses of Delphi delivered ambiguous prophecies. The task of finding the truth in their messages was left to the recipients. “the oracle her / saying that / leads you to / truth but they / are not the / answer itself,” observed Etel Adnan and Lynn Marie Kirby in a tête-á-tyte that was later transformed into the collaborative performance and poem-video (2017), which blends the two artists’ voices. Yet, as they continue to ponder these divinations, Adnan and Kirby assert, “to be loose / does not mean / to be weak.” They celebrate the oracle’s amorphous language as a mode of communication that allows for the freedom to perceive the world beyond linguistic convention