She inherited a wooden bowl, her grandpa’s pipe, and a bug saved since 1944 when her mother, only 10, had something stuck in her ear. Tethers to the past still waiting for their poem. But her dad’s Smith Corona typewriter? Her mother’s mental illness? Already on the page.
Lynne Jensen Lampe writes poetry about family, mental illness, and societal expectations. Following and breaking rules. Stigma. Soon after Lynne was born, her mother was diagnosed with schizophrenia and (what was then called) manic-depression and sent from the air base in Newfoundland to a hospital in Florida, the first of many such separations.
Lynne’s poems appear in Yemassee, Anti-Heroin Chic, The American Journal of Poetry, Rock & Sling, Small Orange, LIT Magazine, and elsewhere. Her debut collection, Talk Smack to a Hurricane (Ice Floe Press, 2022), explores mother-daughter relationships and mental illness. She is a Best of the Net nominee, and her poem “Stirring the Ashes” was a finalist for the 2020 Red Wheelbarrow Poetry Prize.
When not writing, Lynne edits academic books, research journals, and YA novels. She lives in mid-Missouri with her musician husband, two dogs, and a friendly number of dust bunnies.