Description
Welcome to Button University!
4-week online writing course w/ Button author Sean Patrick Mulroy!
Author of HATED FOR THE GODS
Lunatics, Low-Lives, and Lechers: The Voices of Villains in Verse
Over the past half-century, the assumption all poetry is autobiographical has become more and more common. The confessional is king, and the readers and writers of poetry have come to expect poems to be written in the voice of their authors, and for those authors to be cast as the hero. But if, as Shakespeare said, “Art is a mirror held up to nature,” what about the nature of society’s most brutal behaviors and deviant appetites? Wickedness and rage, selfishness and envy, prejudice and lust–the beauty excavated from within stories of violence and perversity offer access to visceral experiences of empathy, and a powerful education of what drives humanity’s most destructive and unsympathetic impulses. While most genres of art are capable of breaking taboo and challenging the status quo, poetry in particular excels in doing so, precisely because of its ability to alchemize the personal and the societal, the acceptable and the grotesque, the justified and unforgivable. In this course, we’ll read and discuss challenging and controversial poems from a selection of published writers–some speaking in persona, others owning up to their actual transgressions. We’ll debate the meaning and purpose of art, which kinds of expression are acceptable and which are deserving of censure, and conduct a few mad science experiments of our own by writing against convention and escaping the confines of morality.
Content Warning: This class will deal with difficult subject matter and discussions of human evil, including but not limited to: prejudice, abuse, insanity, predation, and violence. Individual content warnings will be issued before each class, and students are both expected and encouraged to opt out of any class they feel could potentially prove harmful or unsafe for them, without any fear of judgement or exclusion for doing so. Protect your heart!
Class Dates and Times:
Saturdays in March
2:00pm CT | March 06 – March 27, 2027
Class Duration: 2 hours via Zoom
PAST WORKSHOPS WITH SEAN PATRICK MULROY:
It’s been said that all poetry is about one of three things: love, death, and sex. While the poetries of attachment and grief are likely to grace the pages of any given literary journal, the poetry of the erotic–that is, the poetry of the body, the appetite, and, lest we forget, the origin of life itself–is often relegated to the marginal spaces of themed issues, if it’s published at all.
In this course, we’ll explore the history of sexual content in poetry, examine the origins of censorship and “decency,” and discuss the relationship between love, death, and desire. Close reading poetry from all over the world and throughout history, together we will learn to craft a poetry against shame while observing the differences between the erotic and the pornographic, discuss the purpose of sexual literature in the present day, and develop our own politic surrounding what Ginsberg once called, “an unpublishable private literature.”
Have questions? Visit the Button Workshop FAQ page or contact support@buttonpoetry.com
Praise for Sean Patrick Mulroy
I loved this class and I learned so much! Sean is a really good teacher who truly cares about his students–he made me want to succeed and produce better material, and I’m excited to say I’ve become a much better writer. I looked forward to class all week, I’m sad it’s over!
I thought Sean was awesome. He gave us lots of feedback on our pieces and always appreciated our creativity. He never once told me an idea was bad, he always told me how to make it stronger. He helped me significantly with my writing, more than any teacher ever has.
I really enjoyed having Mulroy as an instructor because of his passion for the subject. I learned something totally new each class.
He made class fun and interesting, and I learned a LOT. He was really encouraging. You could tell he cared a lot about us as students, and about writing in general.
About Sean Patrick Mulroy
Sean Patrick Mulroy is a writer, actor, visual artist, and musician from the American South, who now lives all over the world. A nationally recognized writer in the US, Sean is a performer, an award winning professor, and… MORE
