Overview

Douglas Spangle was born in Roanoke, Virginia and raised in a Park Service family, living in various western states in childhood. In 1966 his family moved overseas and he spent the latter two of his high school years in Ankara, Turkey. He attended the University of Maryland's Munich Campus from 1968 to 1971. For the following four years he worked as a stagehand at the Münchener Kammerspiele Schauspielhaus. For many years he studied and translated the poems of Peter Huchel; he is currently translating the Swiss-German poems of Clemens Umbricht and Florian Vetsch. His own poems are built on his lifelong habit of precise observation of the natural world - the actions and habits of its inhabitants, the light in still life that becomes transcendent. He deals with its traffic: transitions, collisions, time, love and death. His gifts of observation and expression give him a singular voice; he reminds us that landscape is always more than land. His gifts of rhythm, quiet perception and penetrating feeling are beautifully displayed in a visionary analog of Guns, Germs, and Steel, ""Spark in the Stalk"", the poem that ends this selection. A White Concrete Day contains these 45 poems: Gasket / The Tree Horse / A Thing About Bridges / The Jawbone / Wooden Eagles / West of Brawley / Cardston, Alberta / Isle Royale: Mt. Franklin / Jennings / Alfred Hitchcock / The Big Fire / The Magi / Cutting / Kindling / Pallet Factory Song / Walking in Thaw / The Yearling / The Gap / Inflight Notes / The Last Drugstore Lunch Counter / The Rising of the Moon / The Assassination of Arthur Fiedler - a recreation / White Wind / Supernova Tycho, 1572 / Elegy and Epitaph for Willis Eberman / Man in the Moon / Quarter Minus / 21st. & Powell / Notes on St. Johns Bridge / Flying Ants / Orchestra / Old Men's Voices / Mr. Chang Composes a Letter / Scene from a / Famous Battle / View / Parting Scene / A Few things / The Printer's Hair / Radio Tirana / About / That Ice Storm / Her Camera / Villanoid / The Birches / August - 1959-1979 / Mullein / Spark in the Stalk.

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9781647643621

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Reviews

This collection accumulates the power, passion skill and intelligence of his poetry, to the point where I wonder, is anybody writing better than this? - Ursula K. Le Guin, National Book Award winner, poet, novelist, & essayist, author of Hard Words, Earthsea, The Left Hand of Darkness, The Dispossessed, & Lavinia Portland, Oregon-based poet Douglas Spangle has a keen sense of the overlooked detail. His poems are marked by a sweeping memory that charges and deepens their topography. His verse is full of empathy and engagement. Without a doubt, they are part of the Great American Poetry Book. - Florian Vetsch, essayist, translator, editor, author, 43 New Poems Satiric, comic, or movingly lyric, this work invokes landscapes and human-scapes ""crowded with absurdities."" A poet whose ""new word is a new world,"" Spangle modestly tells us his ""...pen is a pennywhistle."" In truth, his pen is a full orchestra creating the music of a vast and varied world. - Paulann Petersen, Oregon Poet Laureate This is not just another White Concrete Day. It binds the harvest of a poet known primarily in the Northwest. I have my favorites: ""Mr. Chang Composes a Letter"" is magnificent. - klipschutz, author, This Drawn & Quartered Moon Douglas Spangle is the mayor of Poetlandia. - Casey Bush, author, Blessings of Madness, and Kiss of the Apocalypse, Senior Editor of The Bear Deluxe Magazine In A White Concrete Day, Douglas Spangle records the world he's lived in, as small as an ant highway on a grass blade, or large as Istanbul, the province of Saskatchewan, or the intersection of 21st & Powell. His passage is marked by love of language, history, narrative and place. - Barbara La Morticella, Atomic Poet & host of KBOO's Talking Earth

This collection accumulates the power, passion skill and intelligence of his poetry, to the point where I wonder, is anybody writing better than this? - Ursula K. Le Guin, National Book Award winner, poet, novelist, & essayist, author of Hard Words, Earthsea, The Left Hand of Darkness, The Dispossessed, & Lavinia Portland, Oregon-based poet Douglas Spangle has a keen sense of the overlooked detail. His poems are marked by a sweeping memory that charges and deepens their topography. His verse is full of empathy and engagement. Without a doubt, they are part of the Great American Poetry Book. - Florian Vetsch, essayist, translator, editor, author, 43 New Poems Satiric, comic, or movingly lyric, this work invokes landscapes and human-scapes crowded with absurdities. A poet whose new word is a new world, Spangle modestly tells us his ...pen is a pennywhistle. In truth, his pen is a full orchestra creating the music of a vast and varied world. - Paulann Petersen, Oregon Poet Laureate This is not just another White Concrete Day. It binds the harvest of a poet known primarily in the Northwest. I have my favorites: Mr. Chang Composes a Letter is magnificent. - klipschutz, author, This Drawn & Quartered Moon Douglas Spangle is the mayor of Poetlandia. - Casey Bush, author, Blessings of Madness, and Kiss of the Apocalypse, Senior Editor of The Bear Deluxe Magazine In A White Concrete Day, Douglas Spangle records the world he's lived in, as small as an ant highway on a grass blade, or large as Istanbul, the province of Saskatchewan, or the intersection of 21st & Powell. His passage is marked by love of language, history, narrative and place. - Barbara La Morticella, Atomic Poet & host of KBOO's Talking Earth

Author Information

Douglas Spangle was born in Roanoak, Virginia, finished high school in Turkey, and spent years as a stagehand for the Münchner Kammerspiele Schauspielhaus. Now a long-time resident of Portland, Oregon, he has emceed hundreds of poetry readings throughout the city and co-organized city-wide events such as Artquake. He is spending his pandemic time translating the Swiss-German poems of Clemens Umbricht and Florian Vetsch. For a number of years he has also acted as copy-editor for Portland's weekly homeless community newspaper, Street Roots.

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