On the evening of Sat., Aug. 27th, we’ll be joined by Lynne Thompson, LA Poet Laureate, and poet Nathan McClain, who will be reading from their work.

Lynne Thompson invited Nathan McClain to read one of his poems on her Radio show in excited anticipation of their reading together. You can listen to it here.

Episode 66 of Poems on Air, Los Angeles Public Library, hosted by Lynne Thompson:
Los Angeles Poet Laureate Lynne Thompson reads Nathan McClain's poem, "Love Elegy in the Chinese Garden, with Koi.”

Nathan McClain is a poet, editor, and educator living in Amherst, Massachusetts. He is the author of Scale (Four Way Books, 2017) and Previously Owned (Four Way Books, 2022). He is Assistant Professor of Creative Writing and African American Literary Arts at Hampshire College, and serves as Poetry Editor of The Massachusetts Review. You can read more about Nathan here on the website of the Academy of American Poets where you can also find more of his work. You can read a conversation with him on Mentor & Muse here.

Lynne Thompson’s Beg No Pardon, her first book, won the Perugia Press Prize in 2007 and the Great Lakes Colleges New Writers Award in 2008. She’s also the author of Start With A Small Guitar (2013) and Fretwork (2019), winner of the Marsh Hawk Poetry Prize. Thompson is the recipient of multiple awards, among them an Individual Artist Fellowship from the City of Los Angeles. Her work has been widely anthologized including in The Coiled Serpent: Poets Arising from the Cultural Quakes and Shifts of Los Angeles, X LA Poets, and Best American Poetry 2020. Thompson serves on the boards of Cave Canem and the Los Angeles Review of Books, is Chair of the Board of Trustees, Scripps College, and serves as the inaugural Perugia Press Poet Liaison to the Board, a conduit between poets and the board and a mentor to the latest winning poet. Learn more about Lynne Thompson on her website at lynnethompson.us.