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.

Why are writers so drawn to animals, and why do certain animals seem more symbolic than others? How can unraveling existing metaphors and tropes surrounding their nature bring out complexities in your work?

In this 6-week course geared to writers of all genres and levels, we'll explore different themes, histories and phenomena surrounding various animal kingdoms, such as apex predators, anthropomorphism, extinction, metamorphoses, city wildlife, humanity's impact on the natural world, and those that exist in mythology and superstition. 

We'll draw inspiration by reading work by Téa Obreht, K-Ming Chang, Elizabeth Acevedo, Katie Farris, Ha Jin,  Arthur Sze, Jose Hernandez Diaz, Kelly Link, Felicia Zamora, and more.

The course goal is to not only reveal creative insights about the lives of mammals, birds, amphibians and insects, but also our past, present and future relationships to them. 

*All work will be provided through links or uploads.

COURSE OUTLINE:

Week 1: Welcome to the Class - Overview + 3 Craft Exercises

Week 2: Apex Predator

Week 3: Anthropomorphism

Week 4: Extinction

Week 5: Metamorphoses

Week 6: A Full Day of Revisiting || Revising 

COURSE TAKEAWAYS

• Explore the many possibilities of various symbolism and figurative language that the animal kingdom possesses in order to add depth to your writing
• Analyze the predator and prey dynamic in various genres
• Examine in depth the complex and fragile relationships between human impact and the natural world through topics like anthropomorphism, extinction and deforestation
• Create new work that reflects the various themes covered each week with a chance to revise work written during workshop in the last week of class

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: