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.
