By Kathryn Barnes
FROM: Greater L.A.

Lynne Thompson is LA’s 2021 poet laureate. The program is a partnership between the Department of Cultural Affairs and the LA Public Library that aims to enhance the city’s appreciation of the literary arts and reach people who have limited exposure to creative writing. 

A native Angeleno, Thompson says the city informs the way she writes.

“[LA] neighborhoods are so unique in their configuration, and how they fit into the city as a whole,” she says. “That has really affected how I might approach a particular topic, whether I’m in the northeastern part of the city, or the southwestern part of the city, in the ocean, or near the mountains, that all comes into play, almost always, in my poems.”

During her term as poet laureate, she plans to develop a project that gets middle and high school students writing about what makes their neighborhoods unique and iconic to them. 

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