Radical Joy
When Lynne Thompson received the news in 2021 that she had been named Los Angeles poet laureate, she wondered if the email was an elaborate phishing scheme. As the reality dawned on her, her skepticism turned to concern: How could she best help when Los Angeles residents can’t gather in person to celebrate due to strict pandemic protocols? Thompson knew it would take a creative reimagining to find ways to reach audiences and connect a city known for its stark contrasts, complexity, and urban sprawl. That moment pushed her to be both proactive and thoughtful, and even gave her time to rework some existing work. Now she has a new collection, Blue on a blue palettea book that draws inspiration from her hometown, from women’s history and from reckoning with racism, held together by a strong thread of perseverance.
This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
The poems in Blue on a blue palette vibrate. Some feel like the edges of dreams, others tip into current traumas. How long have you been processing these?
As Poet Laureate, I wasn’t writing to the same extent, but I had all these poems. A good friend of mine, David St. John, said, “Lynne, if you have poems, you should really think about putting together a collection.”
There was no grand idea. A lot of the poems were about the joy, the anger, the frustration with women’s history. I thought there was something there. As I looked through them, I noticed there were a lot of references to the color blue and the blues. I thought if I could find ways to incorporate the color into poems without it being too obvious, that could be a common thread too.
They enter “Blue” through different doors, but also experiment with the site itself.
I invented – or I believe I invented a shape based on the combination of cento and villanelle called centenelle. I wanted to play with the metaphor that women present themselves in so many different ways – as mothers, teachers, doctors, politicians and sometimes all of these things at the same time. I wanted to accommodate all of that and experimentation was part of that.
You were appointed Poet Laureate when the city – and the world – were in lockdown. What was your experience like?
Thank God for Zoom, because I did almost everything that way in 2021. I went to schools, read in libraries, read for other organizations. Also: I can’t do an interview without mentioning the Los Angeles Public Library. They are amazing. They allowed me to record a mini podcast, Poems on the radio. Every week I read a poem, often by a local poet – but not exclusively.
In the second year, everything became more open. I was able to visit libraries and organizations. The most fun I had was a “Los Angeles Poetry Day” in August of the second year, which I co-hosted with the first Anaheim Poet Laureate, Grant Hier. We had about 125 poets in the rotunda of the library and got a fantastic picture. About 60 poets read. They were so happy to be back in the community. It was a joyous occasion. It was really the highlight of my tenure.
Have you met with past award winners to learn more about their strategies?
At one point, Luis J. Rodriguez reached out and said, “Lynne, if you need anything…” He is always so helpful, as are other award winners across the country. We were all going through the same thing. So it wasn’t “Poor Lynne, I have to do this during a pandemic.” It was all from us. They were so kind and helpful: “What are you doing about it? How are you dealing with it?”
In the poem “The Ways of Remembering Women,” you mention Elizabeth Short – the Black Dahlia – and Betty Nuñez, a witness in the Sleepy Lagoon trial in the 1940s, and how they were pushed into the background by the news surrounding them. What attracted you to these women?
I grew up in the Leimert Park area, and I remember my mother saying that “over there” – where they found Elizabeth Short – “there was nothing, just an open field.” The name “the black dahlia” becomes emblematic of this horror, dehumanizing and trivializing her. I try to look past that. We’ve all seen movies and read novels, but this was a real, living, breathing person who ended up in this hideous tableau. And Betty Nuñez is even less well known. We know why that is. I don’t have to spell it out; just look at her last name. Who are these flesh-and-blood women? I really see this as part of what I’m trying to do with this book – that our stories aren’t told unless we tell them from our perspective.
Let’s talk about Landscapes and nature, especially your poem “Red Jasper.” What do you want to capture on paper when you write about Los Angeles and other places?
My friend Patricia Smith said, “Listen! Every poet you know wants to write about whatever you want to write about, so you have to come up with another way to approach that subject.” So that incident at the end of the poem, on the highway… I don’t remember ever seeing a hunter’s moon before, but as I drove down the 5 and then made that curve north onto the 110, literally everyone stopped. That moon was huge. You could see people saying, “What the hell is that?” I started thinking about this drive that we all do. We don’t think about it. But here in this moment, we Do. So I often find something and think I can take some history and add something sensual to make people think about LA in a slightly different light.
You see poems everywhere?
Everywhere. Every conversation. Every movie. Everything that’s happening around me. I had to kind of train myself to do it. When I started creative writing, I was still practicing law and working at UCLA, so I had to take every opportunity to look for material for poetry. I just try to observe and see where these ideas might come from.
I’m curious about the forms and shapes that attract you as a poet. Is there a style that you feel drawn to?
I didn’t do an MFA. I had gone to law school. I was so worn out. I expected that I would have to educate myself. Well, not myself. There were many, many people who helped me. But it wasn’t formal training in the sense of an academic program. So in the beginning I said to myself, “I’m not going to write in form. I don’t have to.” The truth was that I was afraid of form. And again Patricia said, “Well, if you don’t know, read about it.”
After a while, I started to be interested in people: Terrance Hayes, working on what we now call the American sonnet, and Diane Seuss and Gerald Stern, who had done it years before. All of this is different from the Petrarchan and Elizabethan sonnet. As I studied, I became interested in how the form can be modified or changed or recognized as something new. For example, although it is not a cento per se, the poem “Assemblage” is actually my way of honoring the artist Betye Saar, a woman who creates something every day. The poem, by using the titles of her artworks, writes an accessible biography. So I’m really always looking for possibilities.
Who do you turn to on the site for nourishment? For inspiration? For wisdom?
I go to Jane Hirshfield when I want to be zen and calm, to Terrance to see how he turns his mind around, and to Patricia when I’m reminded of what’s possible. David Baker takes me to other worlds. And I don’t want to forget Lucille Clifton, who is at the top of the food chain when it comes to making amazing arguments with such brevity.
And of course Peter J. Harris …
His perspective on joy is something we really need right now. Radical joy. When he led the workshop at the World Stage in Leimert Park, I remember a sign on the podium – a crossed-out bull. Basically: No bullshit. That’s very typical of Peter. He’s nice. But he will always be sincere.
He and I did a reading and he read a poem that was a hymn. As I listened, I thought, “Why haven’t I written a hymn yet?” What were the things I was grateful for? Life is short and we must celebrate it; this comes directly from Peter. It is the last poem in the book.
Speaking of gratitude: What have you been thinking about more than before since the lockdown or what have you been celebrating more?
What I learned is that I really love my city. Early on, I got in my car and just drove. In the city center, on the corner of Third and Hill, I stopped, got out and stood in the middle of the street because there was no one there. No one! I thought, “This is So dystopian!” That made me think of Octavia Butler. But it also made me realize: OK, yes, our world is completely messed up. But what is the point of all this? The hectic life that fills our everyday lives. This human community. We are still trying to understand it. As an author, I am involved. I still want to know how the story ends.•
BLUE ON A BLUE PALETTEBY LYNNE THOMPSON
is an award-winning journalist and essayist based in Los Angeles. She was an editor for LA Weekly and that Los Angeles TimesHer work has appeared in various news outlets, including New York Times; Smithsonian; Mood; Boom: A Journal for the Conservation of California; Sierra; Being; And MS. She was selected as a 2013 Annenberg/Getty Arts Journalism Fellow at the University of Southern California and received the 2017 Alan Jutzi Fellowship from the Huntington Library for her studies of California writer Octavia E. Butler. She received a 2017 Grammy Award for her liner notes for Otis Redding live at Whisky A Go GoGeorge is the author of three non-fiction books: No crystal staircase: African Americans in the City of Angels (Verso/Doubleday); After/Picture: Los Angeles outside the frame (Angel City Press); and her latest book, A handful of earth, A Handful of Heaven: The World of Octavia E. Butler (Angel City Press)published in 2020, which was a finalist for the 2021 Hugo Award for Best Related Work.
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