Outdoor adventure
Take A Hike With The Humanities
Take A Hike is a virtual program designed to get Idahoans enjoying the outdoors with a reading inspired by the beauty of this land. Each week we suggest a reading to help you make the most of your outdoor adventures! We will include short stories, poems, cartoons, essays, songs and more.
Share your photos/thoughts/inspiration with us on Facebook, Instagram, or at programs@idahohumanities.org.
May 2026
This Week Take a Hike With Shamala Gallegher
Born in San Jose to a South Indian mother and Irish-American father, Shamala Gallagher holds a BA from Stanford University, an MFA from the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas-Austin; and a PhD from the University of Georgia. She is the author of Late Morning When the World Burns (The Cultural Society, 2019), and the co-translator of Evening with a Sufi by Afsar Mohammad (Red River, 2022). A Kundiman Fellow, Gallagher teaches humanities and English. She lives in Athens, Georgia.
Check Out Previous Hikes
The Lilies
Karenne Wood was an enrolled member of the Monocan Indian Nation, a poet, and linguistic anthropologist. She earned her MFA at George Mason University and earned her PhD from the University of Virginia, where she taught and advocated for Indigenous communities. In her poems, she often explores themes of identity, cultural heritage, and language. She…
Look at our boots and spurs!
Angelina Sáenz, M.Ed., is a Los Angeles–based Chicana writer, poet, and award-winning educator whose work bridges teaching, community, and the humanities. Over a fifteen-year career with the Los Angeles Unified School District, she supported educators and students as a Teacher Consultant and fellow with the UCLA Writing Project. A dedicated advocate for education, Sáenz has…
Wind in a Box
Terrance Hayes is an award-winning contemporary poet from Columbia, South Carolina. He was a 2014 MacArthur Fellow. He was educated at Coker College where he studied painting and English and then received his MFA from the University of Pittsburgh. He has taught all over the country and in southern Japan and is now the…
What Do I Care for Morning?
This Week Take a Hike With Helene Johnson Helene Johnson was one of the youngest writers from the Harlem Renaissance, and best remembered for her poetry. Johnson published many poems in small magazines during the 1920s and early 1930s, including Fire!! magazine, Opportunity, the Messenger, the African-American magazine Saturday Evening Quill, and Vanity Fair. Additionally,…
I’m Going Back to Minnesota Where Sadness Makes Sense
This Week Take a Hike With Danez Smith Danez Smith is a writer, performer, and poet; the author of four poetry collections and has won numerous prizes for their work including the Forward Prize for Best Collection, the Minnesota Book Award in Poetry, the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry, the Kate Tufts Discovery Award,…
Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening
One of the most beloved and well-known American poets, Robert Frost explored universal themes using language as it was usually spoken. President John F. Kennedy, at whose inauguration Frost delivered a poem, said of the poet, “He has bequeathed his nation a body of imperishable verse from which Americans will forever gain joy and understanding.”…
In Memoriam
Read In Memoriam by Alfred, Lord Tennyson and get outside to enjoy the blustery, gloomy weather to celebrate the New Year.
Amazing Peace: A Christmas Poem
Join us outside this week to read Amazing Peace: A Christmas Poem by Dr. Maya Angelou.
River
It’s coming on Christmas They’re cutting down trees They’re putting up reindeer And singing songs of joy and peace Oh I wish I had a river I could skate away on Join us on the trail this week with River by Joni Mitchell.
Praise Song for the Day
During this season of reflection and gratitude, we are bundling up and getting on the trail with Pulitzer Prize nominated poet, writer, and academic Elizabeth Alexander and her poem Praise Song for the Day.