November 12, 2023
Rosebud Ben-Oni
Rosebud Ben-Oni is the author of several collections, including the forthcoming The Last Great Adventure is You (Alice James Books, 2027), a sequel to If This is the Age We End Discovery (2021), which won the Alice James Award and was a Finalist for the National Jewish Book Award. Her work has been commissioned by Paramount, the National September 11th Memorial, and the Museum of Jewish Heritage: A Living Memorial to the Holocaust. She has received grants from the New York Foundation for the Arts, Queens Arts Fund, Cafe Royal Foundation, Queens Council on the Arts and CantoMundo.
I’d endure the frozen side of Mercury
& breathe the gas rings of Saturn
if it meant I could return to you
I definitely have gone through periods of many near-deaths. I think the assumption that all life is apex-driven toward violence, that there can be only one victor, that even in the world of atomic elements, iron means death for stars-- this is a false assumption. We are meant to find a way to exist long after everything as we know it ends, the conditions which have made our existence possible are so statistically rare, you know? Like for life to occur on this planet in how it has occurred - it's such a slight chance. I want to honor that slightest chance. We must get beyond what would try to contain us.