The Work of Days

(Paperback)

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With the prisms of varied vocabularies refracting detail and language, Sarah Lang illuminates the intricacies of communication, of the moments and gaps between action and reaction, and, as she does, announces herself as a commanding and rhythmically captivating new poetic presence. The first section of this extended meditation borrows from The Farmer's Almanac, while the second is infused with the language of the occult. In the third part, Lang invokes the vocabulary of the institution -- the airport, the hospital. In the end, these linguistic pillagings accrete into a poignant shadow under the letters of Lang's own words, pulling them into a stark and alluring focus. With echoes of Virginia Woolf, Lang has given us a constellation of poems as delicate and relentless as pure light.

Reviews

"That first there is that orchestration of rhythm and its implicative meanings: irresolution, attentiveness, mensuration. But each remedy generates a new symptom, and the words, like quills, pierce the frames of their contexts. "I "and "You", objects and events, the personal and the scientific, shed their discretion and are irrevocably intertwined: 'My back opens' and what she encounters, at once horrific and eerily intimate, is 'Your hand around my spine.'" --Forrest Gander

Author Bio

Sarah Lang was born in Edmonton, Alberta. After finishing her BA at the University of Alberta, she went on to Brown University to complete her MFA in literary arts. She currently lives in Chicago where she is a PhD student at Northwestern University. She has worked as a medical researcher and web developer, and she frequently shows her photographic works.