Solecism

In Rosebud Ben-Oni’s poems SOLECISM, Amy King contents: “You've never heard from Mexico in this register. Nor moved through the East Village and Jerusalem, Syria and Lebanon, with a guide who spies ‘what grows in broken concrete.' This is exploration and revelation via the road less traveled. Where she finally lands pales beside how she sees the world through her tongue. The journey is all.” Solecism is the nonstandard or ungrammatical usage, a breach in etiquette, or any error, impropriety or inconsistency; these poems, according to Alexander Long, “confront the darker side of multi-culturalism, the vertiginous disorientation of being neither this nor that, neither here nor there, essentially being exiled in her own homelands. “ Gritty yet lyrical, Kamilah Aisha Moon says “these brazen, keen explorations are lit by intriguing desires that mirror and unearth our own, fueled by a deft imagination and wielding of language that rings deeply true. The world needs these tough angel anthems.” Drawing upon the author’s Jewish, Middle Eastern and Mexican heritage, Stephan Delbos remarks: “Her poetry is aware of the world's urgencies, and, troubled, engages them in a barbed dream-language of vengeful longing, a language as fragmented as our world, achieving a startled and startling wholeness from the vivid pieces.” Andre Yang observes: “There is a great fierceness in these poems that is balanced with just the right amount of tenderness” In this stunning debut, as Marian Haddad claims, “Ben-Oni is the dark bird— that sparrow, singing.”