Laurel Blossom

Award-winning poet Laurel Blossom is the author of three book-length narrative prose poems: "Longevity", concerning sisterhood; "Degrees of Latitude", telling the geography of a woman’s life from Pole to Pole., and "Un-", a chapbook about swimming. Earlier books of lyric poetry include "Wednesday: New and Selected Poems", "The Papers Said", "What’s Wrong", and "Any Minute". Blossom’s awards include fellowships from Ohio Arts Council, New York Foundation for the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Blossom served as the first ever Poet Laureate of Edgefield, South Carolina from 2015-2017. She lives in Los Angeles.

First contact with HMC

 I first came to know about and visit HMC in 1989 or 1990. Friends from New York, Bob and Eileen Cox, were living in Oxford at the time while Bob, a seasoned executive recruiter, worked for a company called Oxford Analytics. Unitarians like me, they had sought out Ralph Waller at HMC and Bob had become a senior advisor to Ralph in the early days of Ralph’s tenure, helping transform the College into the vibrant and successful institution it became under Ralph’s tutelage. I have a photo of Ralph and Bob and me standing atop the College tower, smiling at one another heartily, on the day I met Ralph and he gave me and Bob a tour of the College. Like everyone else, I was enchanted by Ralph’s personality. That was the main thing. Being Ralph, he soon invited me to come to College to give a poetry reading, and my involvement with HMC began with that reading. 

Regents' achievement of which I am most proud 

I think I got more from the College than I gave. HMC is a big part of developing (in its early stages) my first book-length narrative prose poem, Degrees of Latitude, published in 2007. I spent six weeks in College in the summer of 1996 working on the book. My new husband, Leonard Todd, joined me there and we left HMC after a few days to travel around England on our honeymoon! As to the Regents, I have been proud always to have been a part of the support the Regents have offered the College, financial and otherwise. John Henry Felix was a great leader and he and Ralph made a great team. I did my small part in supporting the initiatives and projects that John Henry and Ralph presented to us, of which there were always maybe half a dozen large and small ways to help at every meeting. I am proudest of my involvement with the renovation of the Holywell Houses, including my family’s crest on the facade of one of them and my presence for the unveiling of the plaque commemorating the “perception” of Bishop Berkeley’s having lived there. Regents' meetings and the accompanying dinners and recreations were important, educational and fun. The Regents bonded often over their shared interest in the College and in their diversity, which pulled us closer to each other and the College. That is an important component in our success.

A message for students

I was never a student at HMC, though Ralph encouraged me to enrol in theological studies – which I would have loved! I’m not the best person to answer this question, but I can say – "make the most of it!" One of my favourite things during the six summer weeks I spent there were the outdoor student productions of Shakespeare’s plays. I loved the modest and delightful Holywell Music Room. If you’re not British, get to know British food – sausage rolls and the like! While I was there, I pursued my obsession with T.E. Lawrence, went to his childhood home, met the present owner, saw the markings of the boys’ growth in the entrance hallway and the building out back where Lawrence may have written at least some of Seven Pillars of Wisdom. (Ralph told me a funny story about that: Apparently Lawrence left his only copy of Seven Pillars on a bench in the Reading train station. Lawrence had to recreate the manuscript from scratch. Ralph told me that he [Ralph] always went to the Reading station Lost and Found when he passed through on his way to or from London to see if the manuscript, by chance, had been turned in!) Walk over the bridge to the Port Meadow, which has never been mown! Read Matthew Arnold. So much wonderful history and so many romantic places in Oxford - and the surrounding Oxfordshire countryside – Blenheim, for instance. Don’t miss any of it!