Poetry. "Whether reading in sand the movements of a snake, or opening a book by chance to a significant phrase, one is made to adjust one's eyes to the glimmering darkness, as traditional narrative is stripped away, replaced by a sustained visionary lyricism, the four sections resembling a mandala. While slowly, inexorably, and astonishingly, ORACLE FIGURES 'tightens like a slipknot around nothing and undoes itself, ' the end is still to renew our vision of the world" -Arthur Sze. Eric Pankey has, with previous books, won the Poetry Award from the Library of Virginia and the Walt Whitman award from the Academy of American Poets.