"In Search of the Sublime Line: An Interview with Lynne Thompson" by Sarah Elizabeth Clark

Lynne Thompson has impressively chosen to commit her life to poetry by shifting the focus of her original career goals to writing and absolutely thriving as a result. Born and raised in Los Angeles, she strives to share her unique experience and thoughts with her audience while seeking to represent the diverse culture in this city. She is exceptionally focused and is the author of three poetry collections, Beg No Pardon, winner of the Perugia Press Book Award and the Great Lakes Colleges New Writers Award, Starts With A Small Guitar, and Fretwork, which won the 2018 Marsh Hawk Press Poetry Prize. Recently, one of her poems—"She talk like this 'cause me Mum born elsewhere, say"—was selected for The Best American Poetry 2020. Thompson is an inspiration, as her accomplishments reflect on how motivated she is to succeed in all that she does.

Thompson’s love for language started as a result of the support she received from her father, a closet poet. She recalls how he was particularly fond of Langston Hughes and William Shakespeare, and often read poetry to her as she was growing up. “My love of language is a direct response to his influence. I began writing—poorly, obviously —when I was about 10 and, with a few lengthy breaks before I returned to it, now doing so always in search of the sublime line.” Through her father’s encouragement, she became a dedicated reader and her journey to becoming a published poet began to form.

However, Thompson did not start out her career as a writer, but, rather, on the opposite side of creativity, pursuing the study of law. For many years, she worked as an employment law litigator, rarely embracing her creative writing. Her love for poetry kept calling her back, and she felt unfulfilled without her creative side being regularly used. It is quite inspiring how Thompson decided to defy expectations and change her career route so she could pursue her passion. She decided to take an administrator’s position at UCLA, where she could still use her skills in law but did not need to go to court as often. Thompson recalls this change with positivity: “The blessing of this move was that I was able to devote more time to reading/writing/learning the craft of poetry than I had been able to do when I was regularly in and out of the courtroom!”

An interesting aspect of any poet’s experience is how their writing has been influenced by others. For Thompson, Pablo Neruda was the poet who initially helped develop her passion for poetry. However, she explained that her sense of her influences changes almost daily. This is a resonant answer, as it displays Thompson’s care for language and her passion to expand her knowledge as much as possible. Some of her more current influences range greatly, as she particularly seeks out authors whose styles vary from her own, so on the day I asked her about this, she responded,

Today, I’ll say the influence comes from the poems in translation that I’m reading (my current obsession is Sarah Arvio’s translations of the poems of Federico García Lorca in her collection, Poet in Spain), as well as the work of poets writing from vantage points dissimilar from mine—Ilya Kaminsky, for example, as well as Natalie Diaz. I’m also eagerly awaiting the arrival in the mail of Nikki Finney’s latest collection, Love Child’s Hotbed of Occasional Poetry. 

I was also curious as to what she considered an important part of her writing routine. Each author has their own take on the writing process, but I found Thompson’s to be particularly striking, as I appreciate the attention to detail that she particularly reinforces. Her philosophy is that revision is the most significant part of writing and explains,

I am constantly reconsidering my poems—word by word, line by line, concept by concept to determine whether I’ve put the best words in the right order; whether I’ve said too much or too little; whether the poem will be accessible (despite maintaining difficulty where difficulty is appropriate, sweet surprising) to the reader [or] to the audience attending a reading.

Not only am I in awe of Thompson’s thorough writing process but also her passion to always find new subjects that she can incorporate eloquently into her poetry. I asked what advice she could give when writers are having difficulty continuing in their work, and Thompson graciously offered multiple ways for struggling writers to improve their work and keep active in their skills: 

READ. READ. READ. Not only the poets who you like but those, especially those, you go in fear of. For example, I admit that for years, I was fearful of Eileen Myles, that I wouldn’t understand their work and would feel stupid as a result. Once I gave their work a chance, however, I was mesmerized by them and wanted more.

And don’t just read poets—read recipes, NASA reports, old maps, bills of lading, to name a few. Reading outside the box can provide a poet with new language that will invigorate the work with something unexpected. My poem “Short Stack With Switch Monkey” could not have been written if I hadn’t read a glossary of railroad terms. 

What I found most interesting was how her focus is on breaking boundaries and finding ways to push yourself in different directions that defy tradition. Not only does she recommend finding new authors but also latching on to any piece of writing you can find. Thompson expands her world by finding a use for anything she comes across in her daily life. It is incredibly inspiring how she can turn a glossary of railroad terms into a striking poem.

The ambition that Thompson displays is clearly aligned with her skills as a writer. In the wake of the world struggling with the current situation of COVID-19, Thompson perseveres by finding ways to continue on despite the confusion that we are experiencing. She offered up hope in this time, giving advice on how people can continue to be productive, keeping their minds busy, and how crucial poetry is in moments like our current ones:

America is living through an experience that almost defies language to describe its breadth. But as I’m working on these responses, I’m also multi-tasking—more time than ever to do that!—and watching a documentary on the Kennedy brothers. If I ever knew, I’d failed to recall that when Bobby Kennedy spoke to an aggrieved crowd of African Americans in Indiana in the wake of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., he quoted the poet Aeschylus. Despite the current mysterious path we’re on, this fact reminded me that poetry is always, always, a necessary comfort.     

Reading through her work, Thompson definitely has a distinct voice to her poetry. I found myself mesmerized by the way she captures relatable experiences through her use of vivid language and compelling storytelling. Many of her poems seem to be deeply rooted in Los Angeles, where Thompson was born and raised, and accompanied by particularly memorable moments using various places as clear cornerstones in her poems. Thompson said the following in terms of her work, which demonstrates a certain self-awareness of her own rich voice: 

I think every poet has tropes that occupy their creative impulse: love, the natural world, death, of course—but the list is endless. One of the primary tropes for me is where do I come from? Those questions often get responded to in my poems by using metaphor and some get answered more literally. Both avenues appear in my poems “of place,” and being born and raised in Los Angeles means that many of the poems are bathed in the light of my city. Traveling beyond Los Angeles , as reflected in the poem MORIA has most recently accepted for publication—"Blue Plums, 1971”—is also a source of inspiration and a way of sharing the transformative impact such experiences can have.

Thompson has been previously represented in MORIA, Issue One, with two poems, “Doomsday Haiku” and “Los Volcanes de Brea.” It is exciting that Thompson will be included once more in MORIA, Issue Five, with another two poems, “Blue Plums, 1971” and “Anniversary.” These poems are prime examples of the variety of subjects that Thompson uses in her poems and how she draws upon many different experiences to produce her work. Her recent poems draw upon inspiration from two different sources—“Blue Plums, 1971” begins with a quote from poet Christopher Bakken, while “Anniversary” includes an epigraph from Russian poet Vera Pavlova. Both poems weave together rich imagery that leave you wanting more with each line, but one is a travel poem and the other, a love poem with a twist:

“Blue Plums, 1971” was written as a way to recapture some memories of a trip I took to Greece and elsewhere in the summer before my senior year in college. The old photographs I have of that trip are rather poor in quality and the poem was a way of preserving what was a singularly joy-filled experience.

Conversely, “Anniversary”, does not rely on a lived experience but rather on constructing a reaction to a lived experience, i.e., the contrary path of a broken relationship . . . [R]eading the work of Vera Pavlova lead to me to contemplate the idea of regret and the poem took off from there.

Lynne Thompson is a true example as to how a poet can use her environment to the fullest extent. I found myself immediately reflecting on her advice and seeking to find ways to incorporate her thoughtful approaches to writing in my own routine. Her lifestyle and poetry expertly displays the importance of seeking out knowledge in every subject, carefully inspecting every aspect of a poem, and looking for motivation in all things, which are all skills to admire and strive for daily.

Sarah Elizabeth Clark

Sarah Elizabeth Clark is majoring in Professional Writing at Woodbury University in Burbank, CA, and is currently Managing Editor for Issue Five of MORIA. Growing up, she always adored reading and greatly admired authors for their ability to create stories. After a year of nursing school, she realized her true passion was in writing and now enjoys writing poetry in her spare time. She has had several poems published in college literary magazines and looks forward to completing a poetry chapbook (and maybe a novel!) someday.

Headshot: Sarah Elizabeth Clark

Photo Credit: Jacqueline Legazcue