Begins Tuesday, December 1st, 2026

Live Seminar via Zoom from 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM ET

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Instructor Bio

Instructor Sara Sturek was raised on Long Island, New York. She earned a B.A. in Creative Writing and Communication from the University of Southern California and, in 2024, received her MFA in Creative Writing from NYU, where she was a Goldwater Writing Workshop Fellow. She is the recipient of the 2022 Gene and Etta Silverman Award and the 2021 Mark Greenberg Fellowship in Poetry. Her work has appeared in American Poetry Review, Vogue, Women's Health, Business Insider, Narrative, and more. Sara has also taught at NYU.

Who is this class for?

This live online poetry seminar is for writers who want to explore the ode as a living contemporary form and generate new work in a single evening. Whether you've been writing odes for years or have never attempted one, you're welcome here — no prior experience with the form is required. You'll leave this online writing class with one finished ode of your own.

What to expect:

Odes get flattened. They're often filed away as poems of pure celebration, a form to admire at a distance rather than a tool you can actually pick up. But the ode is a form of attention before it is a form of praise, and that's where this creative writing workshop begins. Over two hours, we'll ask what an ode really is, what makes a contemporary one work, and how the form can hold joy alongside grief, uncertainty, and contradiction without becoming sentimental or forced.

The first hour belongs to close reading. We'll look at how contemporary poets stretch the ode and make it their own: Tishani Doshi turning praise toward a pop icon, Traci Brimhall building a poem out of a single color, Bruce Snider finding reverence in a Dolly Parton drag queen, Kevin Young locating tenderness in a hotel near a children's hospital, Sharon Olds refusing to look away from the aging body. Each poet solves the form differently, and together they map how much range the ode still has.

The second hour belongs to writing. Rather than treating the ode as something to study from afar, we'll use it as a door into new poems. Through a sequence of generative prompts built on praise, attention, and surprise, you'll draft your own — and leave with a finished poem plus a set of strategies you can keep using long after the seminar ends.

What are the writing goals?

In this course, students will draft and complete one new ode during our two hours together. The first hour is devoted to close reading and craft discussion; the second to generative writing prompts designed to carry you from a blank page to a finished draft. This is a generative seminar, so there is no manuscript submission and no written instructor feedback — you'll leave with a poem you made in the room, along with prompts you can return to on your own.

Readings

Readings may include excerpts from:

• "Ode to Patrick Swayze" by Tishani Doshi
• "Yellow Ode" by Traci Brimhall
• "Ode to a Dolly Parton Drag Queen" by Bruce Snider
• "Ode to the Hotel Near the Children's Hospital" by Kevin Young
• "Ode of Withered Cleavage" and "Ode to the Clitoris" by Sharon Olds

COURSE OUTLINE

This is a one-session, two-hour generative poetry seminar.

Hour One: Close Reading and Craft. We'll read the assigned odes together and discuss their craft elements — how each poet handles address, attention, image, and turn, and what makes each one feel contemporary rather than inherited.

Hour Two: Writing Your Own Ode. The second hour is dedicated to generative writing prompts drawn from what we've read. Students will leave the seminar with one new ode.

COURSE TAKEAWAYS:

• One finished ode, drafted and completed during the seminar
• A working understanding of the ode as a flexible contemporary form, not a museum piece
• Close-reading experience with five contemporary odes across a wide range of registers
• Techniques for using praise and attention as engines for generating new poems
• Strategies for holding joy alongside grief and contradiction without tipping into sentimentality
• A set of generative prompts you can return to on your own after class

PAYMENT OPTIONS:

Tuition is $99 USD. You can pay for the course in full or use Shop Pay or Affirm to pay over time with equal Monthly Payments. Both options are available at checkout.

ONLINE COURSE STRUCTURE:

• Instructor: Sara Sturek
• Begins Tuesday, December 1st, 2026
• Class will meet once via Zoom from 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM ET
• Tuition is $99 USD.