Tag: D.L. LaNG

D.L. Lang | Vallejo Poet Laureate (2017-2019)

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For poetry resources visit the Vallejo Poetry Society

Q1: When did you start writing and who influenced you the most now and currently?

At eight years old I decided that I wanted to be an international spy after having gotten into reruns of Get Smart on Nick at Nite, so I started observing my surroundings and making up wild fictional stories. Much like in Harriet the Spy I got in trouble at school and had my notebooks confiscated for writing at school when I was supposed to be doing other things. A teacher across the hall praised my creativity, and said I should become a writer. Although at the time I was more into visual art, that planted the initial seed in my psyche. I started filling up legal pads with illustrated short stories, and began writing poetry regularly in junior high school—largely attempts at imitating the surrealistic lyrics and left politics of the 1960s music that I was into. On some level every life experience, favorite band, and non-fiction work has had some influence on expanding my vocabulary and educating me. I studied as much as I could about the 1960s as a historical and artistic era, and that had the largest effect on me when I was younger. I like artists and writers that push boundaries and expand my consciousness beyond my own personal life experiences.

Q2: Any pivotal moment when you knew you wanted to be a writer?

I was in elementary school when the writer bug hit. I think it’s generally a raging hunger for a creative outlet and belonging to a community which transcends even the writing world or the concept of a career, and I have found both of those needs satisfied by writing and performing poetry. In my childhood and my early twenties, I also drew cartoons, took photographs, made films, and played music in the school orchestra. Poetry became my primary medium in adulthood because it was a quick creative outlet that I could still tap into no matter what else was happening in my life. 

Q3: Who has helped you most with writing and career?

I haven’t had a writing partner in decades—a lot of my childhood best friends and I used to make art together, so it’s really been the kind words of friends, colleagues, and having a receptive audience that has kept me coming back for more. In my 30s some friends who are professional musicians encouraged me to perform in front of an audience. Because the encouragement came from people who I respected as artists, that lit the fire that turned me from a shy kid who just scribbled in notebooks into a public performer willing to more take risks. It’s unpredictable and stretches you—there is no end to the possibilities and surprises. Going to local poetry readings where there is mutual support and making close connections with like-minded folks has been the most fruitful use of my time as a writer. Being exposed to performers who are more experienced made me strive to do better, aim higher, and has helped me to strengthen my own voice.

Q4: Where did you grow up and how did that influence you? Have any travels influenced your work?

I cannot remember a time when I haven’t travelled, having spent several hours on trains and planes since I was a baby, and in more recent years road trips to other states in the Northwest and Southwest. Travel and relocating a lot puts you into close proximity with a lot of different cultures, languages, and subcultures, and it forces you to be open minded about different ideas and welcoming towards strangers. 

I was born Germany. My father was serving in the U.S. Army and met my mother there back in the 1970s. They were both hanging out after work at the NCO Club, and a stranger had bought everyone in the bar a drink, but they both assumed it was each other, and that was the start of a love story that lead to my existence a few years later. My dad had to write his congressman so my mother and I could come over due to immigration quotas. In early childhood I lived in Germany, Texas, and Louisiana, but the majority of my childhood I lived in Enid, Oklahoma, so I consider that my hometown. 

There is friction in my relationship with that place which I think is a common occurrence with writers. I had a small circle of friends, but I was largely a loner, so that gave me time to practice various arts. The neighborhood kids and I used to walk down the railroad tracks and trespass in wheat fields which I romanticize in a few poems. On the one hand it is beautiful farmland with incredible sunsets and starscapes, and there are several well-known poets from there such as J. Quinn Brisben, Louis Jenkins, Quraysh Ali Lansana, and three Oklahoma poets laureate, but on the other hand my politics were always at odds with the majority there. Enid’s a military town, and I used to get in trouble in English classes for writing anti-war poetry, which now makes being celebrated as this rebellious protest poet kind of a trip. I think music taught me who I wanted to be since it was so countercultural to that space. Whenever I visit it seems like time traveling to a different era. I felt like an alien from another planet until I moved to the San Francisco Bay Area about 18 years ago where I have since found a larger quantity of kindred spirits. 

Q5: What do you consider your most meaningful creative work?

When I am able to use my poetry for a higher cause be that performing at a protest or benefit, or contributing to a charity anthology, then I believe I am fulfilling my purpose in life. Poetry for poetry’s sake is always a lot of fun, but when poetry can contribute in some way to helping people it becomes a purpose. I have a few different major themes running through my body of work, and thus by extension performer personas—there’s a spiritual poet, a revolutionary, a nature lover, a historian, a fan with a tendency to romanticize her heroes, and a memoirist all battling it out for attention in my books. 

Q6: What are your favourite activities to relax?

I spend a considerable amount of time lying in bed, daydreaming while listening to music or watching movies as a form of escapism and education. Sometimes I like to go out to the local bar to hear live music. I also like to go birding and walk in nature. That all recharges me.

Q7: What is a favourite line/stanza/lyric from your writing?

“May we rebuild this world for the better, /having found enough gratitude in this cracked existence / to know exactly where to lay the cement of love.” 

Q8: What kind of music inspires you the most? What is a song or songs that always come back to you as an inspiration?

I’m a poet who breathes in music and exhales poetry like some kind of ekphrastic bong hit. The first band I loved was Sharon, Lois and Bram from the Elephant Show. I think that was the genesis of my musical taste—meaningful, fun, music with a lot of vocal harmony. As a teenager I listened heavily to the Beatles, Monkees, Byrds, and Bob Dylan. I used to go raid my parents record collection and hunt for records at garage sales. I created a fort out of an old flowery 1970s fold out couch and would lie down inside it composing poetry and listening to music. I’m enamored with protest music lately—Woody Guthrie, Dan Bern, David Rovics, Daniel Kahn, Rage Against the Machine, Dropkick Murphys, etc. Generally, I like deep songs with meaningful lyrics which I find is well represented in folk music, folk revival in the 1960s, psychedelic and progressive rock, and reggae. I think “Imagine” by John Lennon, “Road Less Travelled” by Lauren Alaina, “Suit and Jacket” by Judah & The Lion, and “Home” by Phillip Phillips are some of the best songs ever written and a few of many which can relight my spark.

Q9: Do you have any recent or upcoming books, events, etc that you'd like to promote?

I’m performing in Fairfield, California with a host of other poets laureate on March 16. I’m performing for the first time in Enid, Oklahoma on March 30 at Ink and Inspiration, an open mic at Jezebel’s Emporium. I just released a volume of travel poetry called Wanderings 2.0. The Journey and the Destinations, and I will be performing from it at the 2024 Scissortail Creative Writing Festival in Ada, Oklahoma on April 6. I very rarely read outside of California, but since I go to Oklahoma to see my family anyways, this makes it a bit more more exciting to show up there as a writer. 

Q10:  Any funny memory or strange occurrence that you'd like to share during your creative journey?

Really just how small of a world it is. When I was 8 years old my dad had the choice of being stationed in Enid, Oklahoma or Fairfield, California. Though we moved to Oklahoma, that first put the whisper in my soul of wanting to live in California. I wound up in Solano County 10 years ago, and became the second poet laureate of Vallejo, which is just a few miles south of Fairfield. It almost seems like fate in that respect. Coincidentally, the current poet laureate of that city has Oklahoma roots and happened to live in Enid briefly as well.