Description
Button Up: Poetry 101 is a recurring workshop series for writers of all levels, featuring 60-90 minute classes guest taught by a different Button author each week!
Sign up and write with us all year long!
You can sign up for a single session or you can subscribe monthly or annually.
Please Note: Any order placed 3pm CT or later on the day of the workshop, may not receive a link to the live event but will be sent the recording.
To ensure you are given the class information, please email support@buttonpoetry.com with any questions about how to access your workshop!
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All Writing Workshops Occur on Thursdays @ 7PM CT
01/8/2026 – Building your poetry database w/ Kristina Percy. For this first workshop of 2026, let’s spend some time building a repository for our poetic ideas: somewhere you can return for inspiration when you find yourself with unstructured time to write, when you need a mini-prompt, when one of your existing poems needs “just one more thing”. We’ll collect some ideas together, then read a few shorter poems & see what connections we can make within our database. No Excel skills required!
01/15/2026 – When Pianos Become Teeth: Writing Towards Ekphrasis w/ Adrienne Novy. Students will be able to begin drafting a piece of writing based on a musician or song in relation to their personal experiences and memory. This workshop is designed to help students experiment with the scopes of the universal and the personal, and the fine line that authors walk in the work they create, and how they make the merge between two universes and make them accessible to the outside world.
01/22/2026 – Let’s Get in FORMation! w/ Najya Williams. Let’s Get in FORMation is a writing workshop designed for writers of ALL levels to learn the basics of poetry forms. You will have the opportunity to learn about 3 basic forms via close reading and open discussion.
01/29/2026 – Making the Small Big w/ Jared Singer. How to use the right details to make your individual experiences resonate with a larger audience.
02/5/2026 – SALT, WARMTH, AND FORCE: POETRY AGAINST ICE w/ Kyle Tran Mhrye. As federal forces continue to disappear our neighbors and family members, we know that art won’t be enough to stop them; we also know, however, that art and culture have always been important elements of struggle, and that poets have power to reframe issues, affirm values, mobilize people, and tell the truth in a world full of liars. In this workshop, we’ll explore some powerful examples of anti-ICE poetry, share some tools and tactics for creating more, and do some writing together.
02/12/2026 – HOW DO I LOVE THEE? LET ME COUNT THE WAYS w/ Sean Patrick Mulroy. Anyone who’s seen a Warner Brothers cartoon is familiar with this line from Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s famous Sonnet 43, written over 150 years ago. Browning wrote poetry of romance, but she was also an important part of the Romantic Movement of the 19th century, whose art had just as much to do with revolutionary politic as it did matters of the human heart. In this installment of Button 101, Sean Patrick Mulroy will guide you to a comprehensive understanding of the Romantic movement, from their roots in the Persian literature of the 13th and 14th century to their profound influence on English language poetry of the 20th century. Along with a guided discussion of what the Romantic movement has to offer writers of today, you’ll learn how to engage with the poetry of the past in ways that make centuries-old poems feel fresh and relatable as anything published today!
02/19/2026 – Topaz Winters
02/26/2026 – Chelsea Guavera
03/05/2026 – Be Gay, Do Crime: When Existence is Resistance w/ Ollie Schminkey. These days, it feels more like do gay, be crime. Laws across the country continue to target LGBTQ+ people, and transgender people in particular, increasingly aiming to criminalize our bodies for simply existing in public space (playing sports, accessing healthcare, and flying on planes, just to name a few). This workshop will begin with a short lesson on the criminalization of LGBTQ+ people throughout history, and some of the ways in which our queer and trans ancestors have fought back and resisted. We’ll then read and chat about poems by modern LGBTQ+ poets that engage with queer resistance (both current and historical), and of course, we’ll write our own poems off of tailored prompts. You’ll have an opportunity to share what you’ve written if you’d like (or not, if you don’t like). Your rage, your grief, your love, and your laughter are all welcome here.
Beginners welcome! Experienced poets welcome!Note: Ollie aims for all of their workshops to be actively non-competitive, non-judgmental, pro-diversity, anti-racist, pro-LGBTQ, and extremely fun! You can expect a collaborative environment, a flexible approach to poetry, and (hopefully) at least one good laugh.
03/12/2026 – A SERIOUS GIGGLE: Comedy As Craft In Sasha Debevec-McKenney’s Poetry w/ Josh Tvrdy. Sasha Debevec-McKenney’s recent book of poems, Joy Is My Middle Name, is a comedic tour-de-force. Like any well-deployed craft element, Debevec-McKenney’s comedy is always doing something: disrupting, subverting, transforming. Through close reading and group discussion of Debevec-McKenney’s poems, we’ll explore the versatility of comedy on the page, expanding our poetic toolkits.
03/19/2026 – The Great British Writing Show, Season 2 w/ Matt Mason. Similar to the TV show, The Great British Baking Show, participants will face 2 writing challenges (prompts) in probably not enough time to do it perfectly but, hopefully, they will get good ideas started. In the writing challenges, participants will be asked to share whether they think it is great or not as one focus tonight is “It’s a damn first draft so just get something done!” At the end of the night one of the writers will be named “Star Writer” in a way meant to be a little serious but largely about the fun of writing and experimentation. Your host is Matt Omaha (Also known as former Nebraska State Poet and Button author Matt Mason).
03/26/2026 – Taste Test: Cooking with Flavor in Poetry w/ Patrick Roche. Use the categories of taste receptors/the five basic tastes as allegories for how we approach our writing.
04/02/2026 – Sean Patrick Mulroy
04/09/2026 – Jalen Eutsey
04/16/2026 – Gigi Bella
04/23/2026 – Usman Hameedi
05/21/2026 – Poets as Historians and Record Keepers w/ Hailey Tran. Artists have often been bestowed with the responsibility of recording truth, stories, and history through their work. Poets, in particular, use the pen as testimony: a vehicle to let the world know they have been witnesses to events both big and small, earth-shattering and ordinary alike. Historical events, as they touch our memory through media, textbooks, and legal documents, are often filtered through the perspectives of those in power. Who has the right to write history, and what role do poets play in challenging dominant sociopolitical narratives shaped by extremity and division?
In this workshop, poets will create their own poetic artifacts as nuanced responses to the world unfolding around them. Each week, we will turn to poets of witness and writers responding to political catastrophe, exploring how their work illuminates perspectives that might otherwise remain absent from historical memory. Participants do not need to arrive with any pre-made material or poems; however, it is important to consider which historical or current events you might like to reimagine, rewrite, or challenge.
05/28/2026 – Stevie Edwards
06/04/2026 – Phil SaintDenisSanchez
06/11/2026 – FreeQuency
06/25/2026 – Kyle Tran Mhrye
– Past workshops:
12/5/2024 – Rachel Wiley
12/12/2024 – Rudy Francisco (Rescheduled to 1/2/2025)
12/19/2024 – More for Metaphors w/ Ollie Schminkey
1/2/2025 – Rudy Francisco
1/9/2025 – Let’s Get in FORMation! w/ Najya Williams
1/16/2025 – Narrative & Sound: Saying Without Saying w/ Jalen Eutsey
1/23/2025 – Amplifying the Music in Your Poetry w/ Phil SaintDenisSanchez
1/30/2025 – Persona Poems! w/ Eric Sirota
2/6/2025 – Retracing Our Steps w/ Chelsea Guevara
2/13/2025 – Neil Hilborn
2/20/2025 – you took the mouth right outta my words w/ Lara Coley
2/27/2025 – Rachel Wiley
3/6/2025 – Fighting Your Duende: Poetic Craft and the Subconscious Mind w/ Daniel Elias Galicia
3/13/2025 – Sensual Syntax w/ Josh Tvrdy
3/20/2025 – It’s Time for the Lightning Round! w/ Matt Mason
3/27/2025 – Sabrina Benaim
4/3/2025 – Meeting the Moment: Poetry in Times of Crisis w/ Kyle Tran Myhre
4/10/2025 – Doing the Most (With as Little as Possible): Expanding the Discipline of Haiku w/ Sean Patrick Mulroy
4/17/2025 – let’s beat the blank page together w/ Jared Singer
4/24/2025 – Siaara Freeman
5/1/2025 – Hidden Treasures: Crafting Found Poems w/ Ebony Stewart
5/8/2025 – Poetry as Protest w/ FreeQuency
5/15/2025 – Sabrina Benaim
5/22/2025 – Golden Shovels w /Neil Hilborn
5/29/2025 – Curating an Experience: How to Give a Poetry Reading w/ Jay Ward
6/05/2025 – Metaphorically Speaking w/ Najya Williams
6/12/2025 – let’s beat the blank page together w/ Jared Singer
6/19/2025 – Patrick Roche
6/26/2025 – Summer School: A Choose Your Own Adventure w /Siaara Freeman
7/03/2025 – Unorthodox Approaches to Figurative Language w/ Robert Wood Lynn
7/10/2025 – Sabrina Benaim
7/17/2025 – The Route of Grief w/ Natasha T. Miller
7/24/2025 – Rock Stars Mix Tape: turn the songs that shaped you into poems w/ Matt Mason
7/31/2025 – Agency in Poems: A Tool for Witness & Empowerment w/ Jay Ward
8/7/2025 – Doing the Most (With as Little as Possible): Expanding the Discipline of Haiku w/ Sean Patrick Mulroy
8/14/2025 – A Poetic Examination of Human Wickedness w/ Rachel McKibbens
8/21/2025 – Voice and Persona in Poetry w/ Zach Goldberg
8/28/2025 – Como La Flor: Cultivating Your Unique Voice w/ Gigi Bella
9/4/2025 – Neil Hilborn
9/11/2025 – A Light in the Dark: Writing Towards Resilience w/ Adrienne Novy
9/18/2025 -The Good, The Bad, and the Gnarly: The Power of a Memorable Hook w/ Kyle Tran Myhre
9/25/2025 – Patrick Roche
10/02/2025 – The Art of Detail w/ Stevie Edwards
10/09/2025 – The True Power of Form w/ Aly Acevedo
10/16/2025 – Sabrina Benaim
10/23/2025 – Boomboxes in the Rain: Revivin the Love Poem Through R&B w/ Edythe Rodriguez
10/30/2025 – Mickie Kennedy
11/6/2025 – Topaz Winters
11/13/2025 – Not-So-Shakespearean Sonnet w/ Ollie Schminkey
11/20/2025 – Neil Hilborn
12/04/2025 – Actually, the Poems Keep the Score: Writing Memory, Family, and the Shifting Self w/ Edythe Rodriguez
12/11/2025 – Patrick Roche
12/18/2025 – Anthems Forever II w/ Neil Hilborn
