Born to a Mexican mother and Jewish father, Rosebud Ben-Oni is the author of several collections of poetry, including If This Is the Age We End Discovery (March 2021), which won the Alice James Award and was a Finalist for the National Jewish Book Award. In 2023, she received a Café Royal Cultural Foundation grant to write The Atomic Sonnets, a full-length poetry collection based on her chapbook 20 Atomic Sonnets (Black Warrior Review, 2020). Her work appears in POETRY, The American Poetry Review, Academy of American Poets, Tin House, Guernica, Electric Literature, among others. Her poem “Dancing with Kiko on the Moon” was recently featured in Tracy K. Smith’s The Slowdown.

Learn more about Rosebud in our Meet the Teaching Artist series.

How can science and technology shape poetry and unfold the poetic self? In this workshop, we will examine the possibilities of poetry as a science of “creative reception”— that is, how we are (re)defining our connections to reality, each other, artificial intelligence and life outside our planet— and how this kind of imaginative openness can generate new languages that translates our experiences in the 21st century.

We will reimagine the many futures possible in poetry, drawing inspiration from Aimee Nezhukmatathil, Terrance Hayes, Carmen Giménez Smith, Brenda Hillman, Danya Patterson, Tracy K. Smith and more.

Over the course of six weeks, we will ask ourselves to consider:

• How we write ourselves vs. how we present ourselves & in what contexts
• What is reality both on-and-off the screen vs on-and-off the page
• What “togetherness” means in the 21st century
• How we connect & communicate with each through social media & media at large vs. IRL (in real life)
• What possible life exists outside our world-- and how poetry might play a role in that.

In this course, we will discuss the assigned poems and essays, and you will be given prompts based on the readings. Every week students will workshop based on the readings and prompts. This class is open to poets at all levels of writing; just bring your imagination!

*All work will be found online, so no textbook needed.

COURSE OUTLINE

Week 1: (Transcendent) Realities - What Is (allowed to be) Real?: Intro to the workshop Readings: (1) “Are All the Break-Ups in Your Poems Real?” – Aimee Nezhukmatathil (2) “What Is Reality?” - Jan Westerhoff (3) “The End of Science Fiction” – Lisel Mueller (4) “Study for Belief with Lines from “Star Trek: The Original Series” – Danya Patterson Prompts (1) The real/“unreal” exercise & Exercises: (2) The imaginary exercise

Week 2 Hyper-Identities, Symbols & Language for Limited Spaces: Readings: (1) “American Sonnet for My Past and Future Assassin [Any day now you will have the ability to feed the name” – Terrance Hayes (2) “Symptoms of Prophecy” – Camille Rankine (3) “An AI conference warns us why we need to mind our language” – Simon Ings (New Scientist) Prompts & (1) {re}program exercise: when words & punctuation are limited Exercises: (2) “the emoticon & emoji becomes self-aware” exercise

Week 3 Privacies & Public Fevers: Readings: (1) “Has Listening Become a Lost Art?” – Kate Murphy (LitHub) (2) “Antisocial Media” - Jennifer Militello (3) “Television Prevents Me From Seeing the World as It Really Is” – Carmen Giménez Smith Prompts & (1) Public, Friends Only & Only Me “Facebook” posts Exercises: (2) Media & “Transmitting” the World exercise

Week 4 A.I. & Automations: Readings: (1) “Species Prepare to Exist After Money” – Brenda Hillman (2) “The Robots are Coming” – Kyle Dargan (Watch Motionpoems film of Dargan’s poem) (3) “Text-Savvy AI Is Here to Write Fiction” – Gregory Barber, Wired Prompts (1) Random Text Generator exercise & Exercises*: (2) Group “Twitter” exercise (( *note you will need a smartphone for Exercise 1 – if you don’t have one, just let me know!)

Week 5:(Outer)-outer-wordly Revelations: Readings: (1) “The Alien” – Greg Delanty (2) “The Universe: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack” – Tracy K. Smith (3) “Is anyone out there? Why exploring alien life is no longer a laughing matter” – Adam Frank (The Globe and Mail) Prompts (1) Explaining your world to E.T. exercise & Exercises: (2) Mica Levi’s “Love” exercise

Week 6 Gathering Togethering, IRL, Forgoing a Real A full day of workshopping & sharing your poetry Wrap-up thoughts & additional readings & exercises.

COURSE TAKEAWAYS:

• Generate many new ideas and new work as possible.
• Foster in lively, engaged discussion on the readings.
• Re-envision one’s poetic self amid the new, emerging virtual and scientific languages and landscapes.
• Discover new imaginative language to take after class ends and fuel new projects.
  

TESTIMONIALS:

"When I started Rosebud’s workshop, I was looking to nurture a flare for creative writing that was in serious danger of dying out. Luckily, she was the perfect teacher to stoke that fire. Beyond putting together a syllabus that stretched our concepts of what poetry could be, she encouraged me and my peers to dip into the strange and the silly as we interpreted the prompts we were given. Her celebration of our growth and her thoughtful questions also gave me a model for feedback that I continue to employ when working through new writing with friends. I recommend to just about everyone I know that they try taking a workshop with Rosebud: she's a poet's poet, a teacher's teacher, and a champion for the kind of exploration, creativity, and fun that I needed to fall in love with writing again." -Patrick Mullen-Coyoy, former student

"Poetry workshop with Rosebud was a wonderfully exciting and supportive space where I felt safe enough to experiment and take risks with my poems. Her writing prompts provoked me to ask deeper questions of myself and the class helped me grow immensely, both as a reader and a poet. The syllabus was rich in poetry, essays, music, and videos that encouraged lively classroom discussion and powerful, engaged writing. What strikes me most about Rosebud is her big-hearted generosity and genuine interest and delight in having her students succeed." -Yamini Pathak, former student

"Rosebud is by far one of the best mentors I’ve had in a workshop setting. Her materials are thought-provoking and inspirational, and they challenge students to explore, play, and experiment. Her comments are always insightful and she creates a supportive environment where students are encouraged to be themselves, as well as to interact with each other both within and beyond the workshop. She’s generous in her feedback and with the time she dedicates to each student and is always willing to answer questions and help in any way she can." -Leonora Simonovis, Former student, winner of the Prairie Schooner Prize

ONLINE COURSE STRUCTURE: