| Title | : | If This Is the Age We End Discovery |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | - |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | - |
| Publication | : | First published March 9, 2021 |
Finalist for the 2021 National Jewish Book Award
Booklist, Starred Review: “The disciplines of poetry and physics might seem far afield from one another, but Ben-Oni draws on the odd properties of supersymmetry to create a dexterous collection of electric lyrics that defies conventions of science and syllabics alike. In fragments of text that float and swirl in staccato arrangements, Ben-Oni grapples with otherwise abstract principles made intimate in their idiosyncratic imagining: “They are not elegant. // I mean. My vibra- tions, my math. In particular. // The math holding me together is particularly faulty.” Projected outward, the poet’s vision captures relationships with breathtaking imagery, as when a poem slowly disentangles the speak- er’s connection with her father-in-law: “The air is grey. & osseous. Sheds soft down. My eyes water.” A series of “Poet Wrestling” poems define the book’s structure, and “Poet Wrestling with the Brxght Brxght Xyxs” recalls Ben-Oni’s previous collection, turn around, BRXGHT XYXS (2019), creating a multifaceted, intertextualverse} String Theory” invokes Hebrew gematria and the 11 dimensions hypothesized by string theory with equal ease, and serves as a cypher through which to understand preceding passages. An astonishing wverse} String Theory” invokes Hebrew gematria and the 11 dimensions hypothesized by string theory with equal ease, and serves as a cypher through which to understand preceding passages. An astonishing work for adventurous readers intrigued by science and literature.”
Publisher's Weekly: "The powerful and provocative second collection from Ben-Oni tackles major existential issues—creation, nullification, personal experience, objective truth—with grace, humor, and linguistic flair. A persistent refrain is the poet wrestling with scientific theories about the nature of reality as she applies her own poetic spin to creation. “Efes,” a Hebrew concept meaning “to nullify,” becomes the focus of these poems as they struggle to conceive of a universe possibly spiraling into nothingness: “Hallo I’m pretty sure my God thinks I’ve lost/ my way when I sing my ears {are} full/ of Dark Energy Efes/ & all these planets/ running away. Our universe/ on the run. & savage.” Here, there exists the profound and terrifying possibility that “One day, soon, there will be no more science fiction.” Yet, while the poet struggles with the big questions, she also makes room for a playful and wishful hope that the creative act can offer humanity a fresh perspective: “So place your bets/ that advanced civilizations don’t always/ not annihilate themselves. Woah./ Let’s try this again./ Reset.” This ruminative collection blends poetry and science to make the unknown sing.”
“Through these breathtakingly elegant poems, Rosebud Ben-Oni proves once and for all that poetry and science are sisters. If This is the Age We End Discovery maps, like a series of carefully wrought equations, the physics of connection and loss. What does a love song echo against when it spins into space? What symmetries and risks are woven into our very code? How do we live wired for uncertainty, in the yawn of the universe we can’t control? Readers will find it impossible to escape this collection’s unparalleled gravitational pull.” —Jennifer Militello, author of A Camouflage of Specimens and Garments
“Rosebud Ben-Oni's poetry is exquisite and astounding. This is a poet who is going places.” —Noelle Kocot
"I experience much boredom these days with the world and its predictable cruelties or poetry and its predictable safeties. This phenomenon of a book launches me with its wonder into space and the multiverse and then somehow discovers compassion where we might expect to find only absence of heat or light. Ben-Oni rides with and wrestles the horse of theory to the event horizon's brink, and at the point that empirical proof can take her no further, love transmutes undoing into possibility unimagined." —Kyle Dargan, author of Anagnorisis
If This Is the Age We End Discovery Reviews
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Complex and brilliant, this is poetry at its best. Rosebud Ben-Oni takes theoretical physics as her starting point to explore the philosophical and scientific, charting new courses in form and insight. The first read may be difficult and elusive, but deep reading is definitely rewarded.
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As the other reviews note, there is a lot of playfulness and experimentation in this book and I found some of the poems to be very powerful and riveting. That said, I am a human who likes some concrete imagery, something for strangeness to tether to and I often found myself untethered in a way that didn't feed my understanding of being alive in a multiverse. I kept feeling myself grasping for the logic pushing the play with syntax and punctuation and not finding a branch to hang onto. Perhaps that was the point, though, of course!
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The last book I read for the Sealey Challenge 2021, this collection left me breathless, amped up, wanting more. Her book strangely speaks to the pandemic times we are living in. Lyrical, experimental, humorous. A new favorite on my bookshelf.
"I don’t know why some birds return
To haunt us. I have felt thin, small talons
Dig into my wrist. We tangle in the darkness,
Porous as loess. No trail of marigolds & copal incense.
No falconers in the boot hills. Where we go, I feel still
But never remember."
From the poem "The Songs We Know Not to Talk Over" -
Ben-Oni's poetry borders the otherworldliness of quantum physics, her surprisingly playful artistic genius, while being strongly influenced in pop cultre. This collection meant so much to me beacause of the issues of faith, belief, science and family interwoven in each poem! I ADORE this collection! Rosebud Ben Oni had me at Solecism, her first collection of poetry, then solidified my joy with Turn Around BrXght XYXS, but I have to admit that this is my favorite collection!
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IF THIS IS THE AGE WE END DISCOVERY by Rosebud Ben-Oni unzips the very universe.
To read this collection is to abandon every previous concept of horizon for something much more accurate to the mystery we edge.
This is a poetry to float in. I love when someone takes physics and allows it to work in tandem with hope.
I can't wait to come back to this one again. -
"Either horses change
to natural disasters or frozen ground heeds
the silence of its ruins. Now it's time to walk.
Wipe your face
off with pure glycerin
& sage.
Creation is a spell
of double negation."
From "Poet Wrestling with Rick And Morty but Mostly Rick" -
The playfulness of it.
Smaller than an atom, well, now there’s the pentaquark
Which is almost all quark save for one
Antiquark, & if not for the anti-
Quark, would anything, any-
Thing at all, be?
‘All Palaces Are Temporary Palaces’
Rosebud Ben-Oni / If This Is The Age We End Discovery
And, the deeply serious contemplation of it (All), too. String Theory, Dark Energy, Zero (*to the Power Of), and Everything that Is, even a Recurring Vampire Bunny, and if that sounds strange, read it and see; it works.
The writing is highly original, taking risks with form, exploring the beauty of negation, exploring the mysteries of creation. By chance, I happened to read it the day after reading
The Undressing by Li-Young Lee, and while these collections are different in style, mood, approach, and intention, they are both skillfully speaking to the same mysteries, and they belong on a shelf near to one another.
The cover art, an abstract of the Universe as a chaos of color and fine circular lines, entangled and connecting plotted points, suggests the Golden Mean and delivers an overall sense of balance and order. It’s a wonderful visual metaphor for the poetry within.explosions before our eye. You’re in love {with} me. & space.
Will not empty. Voids are luscious & we’re looking. Hard. Like light
-years of tongue. Sense thinks. ‘Can’. ‘Will’.
Separate us. Nothing, after all.
Is. Our language.
‘Poet Wrestling From Zero to The Power Of’
Rosebud Ben-Oni / If This Is The Age We End Discovery
These poems operate within their own linguistic rules and syntax, all carefully introduced to us by the poet. Seamlessly, she teaches us through example and exposure to her forms, how to read and understand the work as we go along.
If you are not familiar with the scientific theories I rattled off above, or if the idea of talking physics, algorithms, and mathematical equations make the wires in your brain glitch, you still want to read this. She brings these things into her poetry with all the panache of a seasoned science fiction writer. They are integral to the work, but not a barrier for the reader. Trust the collection will carry you.
Rosebud Ben-Oni is a Latina-Jewish American poet and writer. If This is the Age We End Discovery was shortlisted for the 2021 National Jewish Book Award in Poetry and won the 2019 Alice James Award.
Treat yourself to an hour of wonder; experience this book.
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The structures of these poems are complicated, the kind of visual that I find extremely difficult to read. I still really appreciated this one, and it's one I can see myself going back to. It's not the kind of poetry I can just look at and absorb I definitely have to sit with it. Very inventive and intriguing nonetheless.
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Blew my mind (in a good way). Highly recommend.
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left me feeling a bit confused
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I consider myself an avid reader of poetry, so I am very familiar with modern poets who use the entire page to tell the poem, with the words scattered across the page like dandelion seeds. I think the form can be quite beautiful, and I always appreciate when the author utilizes the tapestry of a page to bring deeper meaning and impact to a poem. I understand that this is what the author was striving for in this collection, with the physics-reminiscent brackets throughout most of the poems. But it was so hard to read that any deeper meaning was lost on me, with my mind struggling to piece a sentence together, let alone a whole poem. If a poem has a period after every third word, I am going to struggle to understand it. The style just wasn't for me, but I do appreciate the attempt at inventiveness.
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A collection of poems about life, survival, science, physics, family, death, and the unknown.
from The Songs We Know Not to Talk Over: "After a funeral, something wrestles from the wind, / Flutters haphazardly close to your aching chest. / Most likely it will fall to the cracked sidewalk. / Stop walking. Consider it."
from If This is the Age We End Discovery: "When I hear the sleet, the whipping / Of time petrified on sheetrock, I collapse / Into vessels they can't find yet / Again. As if there's no more originality, / Only riff / & mutation."
from {All I Wanted was Everything}: "You say you'd stake your life / in trying to understand / why gravity, like me, crushes / & slips / through your hands, / when I'm one hundred percent / certain that we are two / points never to meet, / if you keep / trying to connect the small & large of you / & me." -
More like 4.75 but I rounded up obviously.
This was very good. Very odd, scattered sort of thoughts that stay on a few themes so there’s an arc to follow through the confusing, borderline avant-garde style. There were several poems and lines that really hit me hard as they discuss trauma and faith and family and how those things interact. However, I think the second section loses itself in the stylistic form so it’s a lot harder to parse and it makes it less fun to read. But luckily, the second section is the shortest - only four poems total I believe. -
The poems in this collection marry the precision of scientific equations with word choices that are incisive and at times sharp to develop coding for a poetic physics of relationship connectivity, moving between bringing lovers together and separating them, and between predictability and chaos, to explore the poet's universe.
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Picked this up on a whim and really liked it. I don't usually read a ton of poetry but I thought the structure and topics were very elegant and complex but also a bit confusing. Wonderfully strange. I wish I had savored it and spread out the reading to enjoy it better. Would definitely recommend.
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DNF completely. I wanted to like this book. I really did. There were some poems that I liked but overall no. I found myself skimming through the majority of it. Not my cup of tea.
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An Estimable read.
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“Maybe our most real timeline resides in another verb tense.”
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You have to see her read in person! She shows incredible range of style and subjects on the page, & is her own genre, as others say. A strange and brilliant book.
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Not sure how to rate this. It was unlike anything I had ever read, but I can't say I understood it completely. But I'd like to.
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Remarkably crafted. Just not for me.
Would highly recommend this to people that are intermediate or advanced poetry readers. -
A dexterous book, full of syntax and space that hurls into intimacy, faith, and the contemporary world.
