Study of History Leads to Good Poetry: an Interview with Timothy Hudenburg

If you’ve edged out Jill Biden, former Vice-President Joe Biden’s wife, for teacher of the year as Timothy Hudenburg did in 2014, you’d think you might rest on your laurels, but this thirty year veteran of teaching is beginning his third career as a full-time poet.

Hudenburg who has taught history at W. T. Woodson High School as well as Northern Virginia Community College retires from teaching this year. He has received high online ratings from his students for his sense of humor, his ability to make history interesting and his personal concern for others. His poetry reflects these qualities.

His work has been published in Requiem Magazine, DeLuge Journal and As You Were: The Military Review. Penultimate Peanut Magazine has featured three of his works. His most recent “Reveille and Foreboding” in our June issue, reflects his interest in history and his military background. He grew up as a military brat, his father was in the U.S. Air Force and Hudenburg started his working life in the U. S. Army as a tank commander. He was stationed in Germany when the Berlin Wall came down in 1989.

His military past colors some of his work and he says he feels strongly for those who serve. “We still have men and women in the field. That show goes on. We really need to appreciate them beyond special days.” Hudenburg said.

Hudenburg thinks of his writing as conveying an everyman essence like his favorite writers: Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Leo Tolstoy, and T. S. Eliot. “I use Jungian archetypes that we all have inside us. I want my work to be read as an open read, let the words speak for themselves.” In fact he signs his poetry with his initials as he doesn’t want to be connected with a gender.

His future plans include publishing a collection of his poetry, doing guest lectures on a cruise line and taking his wife Sabine on trips abroad.