Lynne Jensen Lampe

Leaving Louisiana

Loblolly pines, pin oaks, swamp iris
Sip your last chicory coffee

Uproot
because

water stays behind
& green speaks two languages

high desert doesn’t understand

Cry till dew unfurls blue
flowers at dawn

Lynne Jensen Lampe’s poems appear in many journals, including THRUSH, Rise Up Review, Yemassee, LIT Magazine, and One. Her debut collection, Talk Smack to a Hurricane (Ice Floe Press, 2022), a 2023 Eric Hoffer Book Award winner (honorable mention–poetry), concerns mother-daughter relationships, mental illness, and antisemitism. A 2020 Red Wheelbarrow Poetry Prize finalist, she edits academic writing and lives in mid-Missouri with her husband and two dogs. Visit her at https://lynnejensenlampe.com; Twitter @LJensenLampe; or Instagram @lynnejensenlampe.