Category: Poetry
We’re excited that you’ve joined the conversation! At HMU, we want to continue the great authors’ conversations in a contemporary context, and this blog will help us do that. We look back to Aristotle and the early philosophers who used reason and discourse to gain wisdom and now we endeavor to do the same every day.
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July 17, 2026
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
Recently, I’ve been talking a lot about fate. For example, in The Iliad, everyone knows the fate of Achilles – even Achilles. In fact, Achilles’ death is so unimportant to the telling of the tale, that it’s not even included in the book. This confirms that the end of the story is less important than the arc of the journey.
June 12, 2026
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
It’s been a few years since I have posted a summer reading list, so I thought it would be a great way to transition into this year’s summer recess. I often compile a summer reading list for myself. Sometimes I get through it and sometimes I don’t. These lists are not meant to be assignments, so I always shrug off any books that didn’t get to the top,
May 8, 2026
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
The “Town-Ho’s Story” is one of the more enigmatic chapters in Moby Dick (which contains plenty of enigmatic chapters). Situated between “The Gam” and “Of the Monstrous Pictures of Whales,” the “Town-Ho’s Story” serves multiple purposes. First of all, at this point in the story, Ahab isn’t interested in any gams. He doesn’t care to chat with other whalers unless they can point him to the white whale.
February 13, 2026
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
I just finished a Mary Oliver seminar which was hosted by the Academy of American Poets and taught by Lindsay Whalen. I appreciated Whalen’s historical insights into Oliver’s writing. Here are a few things that I love, admire, cherish about Mary Oliver’s poetry.
First, as Lindsay Whalen eloquently expressed in class, for Oliver, memories are attached not just to a moment in time but to a very physical place.
December 19, 2025
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s blog.
As the holiday season arrives, many of us find ourselves moving at a frenzied pace. To counterbalance the fury, I like to sit with a poem. Since HMU is also entering the holiday break, I figured that featuring a poem would also invite you into this practice. Use the next few weeks to explore the poem at your own pace.
December 12, 2025
Thanks to Ibrahim Nureni, a 2025 Fellow in Ideas, for today’s post.
In Margo Natalie Crawford’s Black Post-Blackness, tidalectics is characterized by “nonlinear” or “back-and-forth” black radical tradition of continuity in that the experiences of black people from the era of slavery to the contemporary days do not follow a parallel path but adopt a circular schema (3). English, in How to See a Work of Art in Total Darkness,
» Read more about: Alexander’s “Praise Song for the Day”: A Serial and Tide of Black Voices »
August 22, 2025
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
The 24th U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón wrote a poem that has stuck with me for years. I replay this poem in my mind sometimes, like an earworm. It’s ironic, then, that the poem itself contains the phrase: “I don’t know what it/ was that made me press replay and/ replay.” In “The Mountain Lion,” Limón describes a mountain lion effortlessly leaping over a large fence.
May 16, 2025
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
If you know me at all, then you know I love poetry. I read a lot of it. You might say I consume metaphors, images, and ideas. I also carve space into each week to write poems, enjoying the struggle and care of language. I find restrictions and limitations frustrating, but usually worthwhile. So, it will come as no surprise that I immensely enjoy the entire month of April (National Poetry Month) and attend as many events as possible.
January 17, 2025
Thanks to 2023 Fellow in Ideas, Chad Greene, for today’s post.
I was a professor, and it was the week before the semester ended, so I should have been grading. But instead of colored pens and stacks of students’ essays, on my desk were a piece of cardboard, a permanent marker, and a set of acrylic paints and brushes. After a visit to the exceptional exhibition “Peter Carr: Artist for Survival” at the Cerritos College Art Gallery,
» Read more about: Ekphrasis: When Great Art Inspires Great Text (or Comics) »
December 20, 2024
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s blog.
I recently entered a writing course through the University of Chicago, Graham School. Led by writer Dina Elenbogen, it focused on the intersection between walking and writing, a topic which many of our HMU students find important as well. We discussed craft but also motivation, inspiration, and the importance of journey. For many writers, movement inspires thought and helps to bring ideas together.