[Music intro]

LYNNE THOMPSON: Hello! My name is Lynne Thompson, Poet Laureate for the City of Los Angeles and I’m so happy to welcome listeners to this installment of Poems on Air, a podcast supported by the Los Angeles Public Library. Every week, I’ll present the work of poets I admire, poets who you should know, and poets who have made a substantial and inimitable contribution to the art and craft of poetry.

LYNNE THOMPSON: Happy New Year, listeners! I’m so pleased to be able to continue this podcast with a spotlight on poets who contribute to making Los Angeles a literary force in American letters. I’m not alone in recognizing these poets’ contributions. In 2021, several literary journals specifically spotlighted L.A. and California poets. One of those journals, Inter-liq, included Suzanne Lummis in its four-part feature. In full disclosure, Suzanne was one of the first poets I studied with and her reputation as a teacher and mentor is well-known and extensive across L.A.’s poetry community. She teaches in UCLA’s Extension Program, offers private workshops, and was a 2018-19 City of Los Angeles Literary Fel-low. In addition to editing the anthology Wide Awake: Poets of Los Angeles and Beyond, Lummis is the author of three collections of poetry.

LYNNE THOMPSON: Today’s poem is "Why I Am Not the Los Angeles River" by Suzanne Lummis.

Why I Am Not the Los Angeles River

              “I am the L.A. River!”
               - Assorted performance artists in
               1980s on-site presentation

I don’t trail for miles under 
          cement and steel-girder bridges as a spindly
brook, then sweep out to spread an inch
          of melted snow and smoky run-off
across a concrete floor the width of several lanes.
I’m not the L.A. River.

No sandpipers high-step across me, 
          wetting their ankles. No kingfisher raises 
its wings over my stilled inlets to study its shadow—
          though I did once hold a macaw on my wrist.
And once, late night, in that Vermont Avenue tenement,
          something scampered over my face—so 
I woke, so I resolved to stop feeding
          the mice, to stop setting out Rice Chex and tiny 
cream cheese hors’ oeuvres on the kitchen floor.
But egrets don’t trace me, skimming their feet
          on my surface. I’m not the L.A. River.

It goes its way, I mine. Sometimes we cross—
          me above, on the thoroughfare, fiddling
for a tolerable station, delayed, grumbling, 
          running behind, and the river below, running 
exactly on time. We’re both 24/7. We’re not afraid 
          of bleached daylight, or neon-slicked dark. 
Each from our source, we came here
          by hook and by crook, by turns—we rolled
into town. Rain-filled, that river drowns people.
          Rain-swept, I’m not harmless either. 
This city’s got something on us, and we’ve got
          something on it—but River keeps mum, 
like now, lets me do the talking. 

Still, that’s not me out there, floating skins of plastic
          stamped Food-For-Less 
beneath the rufflings of low-flying birds.

Let’s stop all this gossip, mad rumors, 
shadowed insinuations. I am not the L.A. River. 

LYNNE THOMPSON: The Los Angeles Poet Laureate was created as a joint program between the City’s Department of Cultural Affairs and the Los Angeles Public Library and this podcast is available wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening!

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• Back to Poems on Air: Episode 41



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