The Poetry Project

Rod Smith

They say friendships are defining. They give our lives meaning, that’s the thing. Meaning a kind of Langing. Doug everywhere for us, for us. The us here refers to the D.C. poets, his students, his long-term girlfriend Sandra, and pretty much anyone that knew him. It’s intense to have had such a friend, whose way in the world helped so much. For Doug, being and being a poet were the same thing. Not that he would ever say that.

I have a poster for a reading at the Corcoran School of Art + Design where he taught writing and much else for some 36 years. Screen-printed by his longtime colleague, the poet Casey Smith, the poster includes a few seemingly casual elements—in the upper left is a visual poem by Tom Raworth which consists of the letters LANG superimposed on one another. To the right in block letters, POETRY, in the center left, “Doug Lang & Students, May 1, 6–8 pm Corcoran Auditorium,” and in the lower right, the logo for his hometown football club Swansea City AFC. The Swans. Casual and beautiful, like Doug. As they say in Swansea and we now say here, Up the Swans!

He would show up at readings and hand me 20 or 30 mix CDs he had made with titles like Zana, Mesner’s, Xquenda, and Jogo. This happened several times. He organized his music at home chronologically and his mixes tended to be likewise. Jazz, Folk, Blues, Calypso, Rock, etc. of all eras. His readings were always a big event, nobody wanted to miss Doug. He’d read sonnet after sonnet or whatever he’d been up to in his terrific Welsh-accented gravelly voice with dedications to D.C. poets & Corcoran friends and we’d laugh. Laughter, and respect and enthusiasm for the creative, that was what this man communicated, always. It was beautiful. Thanks Doug, thanks and good wishes, always.

Remembrances: Doug Lang (1941–2022)

Elsewhere