The adopted daughter of Caribbean immigrants,

Lynne Thompson was Los Angeles’ 2021-22 Poet

Laureate and received a Poet Laureate Fellowship

from the Academy of American Poets. She is the

author of three previous collections of poetry: Beg No

Pardon, Start With A Small Guitar, and Fretwork, winner

of the 2019 Marsh Hawk Poetry Prize. Thompson is the

recipient of multiple awards including an Individual

Artist Fellowship from the City of Los Angeles, the

Tucson Literary Festival Poetry Prize, the Steven Dunn

Poetry Prize, the George Drury Prize, as well as

fellowships from the Summer Literary Series, Kenya,

and the Vermont Studio Center. An attorney by

training with a J.D. from Southwestern Law School,

Thompson sits on the Boards of Cave Canem, The

Poetry Foundation, and the Los Angeles Review of

Books. In June 2022, she completed her four-year

service as Chair of the Board of Trustees at Scripps

College, her alma mater. Thompson’s recent work can

be found or is forthcoming in the literary journals Best

American Poetry, Kenyon Review, The Common,

Pleiades, The Massachusetts Review, and Copper

Nickel, among others.