Carcanet Press - V.R. 'Bunny' Lang

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V.R. 'Bunny' Lang (1924-1956) was a poet, playwright, actress and director born in Boston, the youngest of six daughters. She was a founding member of the Poets' Theatre in Cambridge, Massachussetts in 1950, where she staged two verse dramas, Fire Exit (1952) and I Too Have Lived in Arcadia (1954), and starred in multiple other productions, including the original performance of Frank O'Hara's Try! Try! (1951). Her poetry was widely published in her lifetime, particularly in POETRY, and she was, for a time, editor of the Chicago Review. She died of Hodgkin's disease at the age of thirty-two.

'Campbell has diligently sifted through the sprawling Lang archive in the Houghton Library at Harvard and discovered many previously unseen gems. Lang's kooky creation of states of unease is typified by the opening poem... Lang is not a bleak or dispiriting poet, and jaunty humour irradiates many of the vignettes collected here.'
Mark Ford, The London Review of Books
'Lang's poetry occupies its own domain.'
John Yau, Hyperallergic
'Poems of darkness and forbode echo through this collection... Bunny Lang brings her own veritas, her own incantations and ringing church bells.'
Roy McFarlane, The Poetry Society Bulletin 'These are young poems by a poet who got to stay young, and shared her youth with poets we know but her youthful playfulness and unswerving fate and unabashed and forceful ear excite me because suddenly I'm on an unknown road in the annals of poetry history. It's a little familiar. It's great. It's like she just walked in. And made the whole story true. We have someone new to talk with and a different history, Bunny Lang just rewrote it.'
Eileen Myles 'She is calling us long distance in these poems, telling us how it is with her, how bright things can be, how terrible things are. She was a wonderful person. She is one of our finest poets. We are so lucky to have something of her still!'
Frank O'Hara
'These poems, which are not exactly personal, do convey the brilliant personality of V.R. "Bunny" Lang, poet, dramatist, and founding figure of 1950s Boston avant-garde theater. They are dramatic speeches, exclamations, soliloquies, addresses for personae, in a described "setting" and hinting at a story. That is, they are theatrical! They are bitchy, allusive to events off-stage, to a personality, even, that's off-stage. Always alive, still alive (despite an early, tragic death), Lang is perhaps the first woman poet in history to despair of her actual monetary debts. These are tone-of-voice works, totally vocal, startingly rhymed, choppy syntax, spare punctuation, interesting pronouns â Auden's complicit "we," the resented "you," the masklike "I." Something that remains very modern starts here.'
Alice Notley

Awards won by V.R. 'Bunny' Lang Commended, 2024 A Poetry Book Society Spring Special Commendation
(The Miraculous Season)

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V.R. 'Bunny' Lang Books by this author: The Miraculous Season About Reviews Awards V.R. 'Bunny' Lang (1924-1956) was a poet, playwright, actress and director born in Boston, the youngest of six daughters. She was a founding member of the Poets' Theatre in Cambridge, Massachussetts in 1950, where she staged two verse dramas, Fire Exit (1952) and I Too Have Lived in Arcadia (1954), and starred in multiple other productions, including the original performance of Frank O'Hara's Try! Try! (1951). Her poetry was widely published in her lifetime, particularly in POETRY, and she was, for a time, editor of the Chicago Review. She died of Hodgkin's disease at the age of thirty-two. 'Campbell has diligently sifted through the sprawling Lang archive in the Houghton Library at Harvard and discovered many previously unseen gems. Lang's kooky creation of states of unease is typified by the opening poem... Lang is not a bleak or dispiriting poet, and jaunty humour irradiates many of the vignettes collected here.' Mark Ford, The London Review of Books 'Lang's poetry occupies its own domain.' John Yau, Hyperallergic 'Poems of darkness and forbode echo through this collection... Bunny Lang brings her own veritas, her own incantations and ringing church bells.' Roy McFarlane, The Poetry Society Bulletin 'These are young poems by a poet who got to stay young, and shared her youth with poets we know but her youthful playfulness and unswerving fate and unabashed and forceful ear excite me because suddenly I'm on an unknown road in the annals of poetry history. It's a little familiar. It's great. It's like she just walked in. And made the whole story true. We have someone new to talk with and a different history, Bunny Lang just rewrote it.' Eileen Myles 'She is calling us long distance in these poems, telling us how it is with her, how bright things can be, how terrible things are. She was a wonderful person. She is one of our finest poets. We are so lucky to have something of her still!' Frank O'Hara 'These poems, which are not exactly personal, do convey the brilliant personality of V.R. "Bunny" Lang, poet, dramatist, and founding figure of 1950s Boston avant-garde theater. They are dramatic speeches, exclamations, soliloquies, addresses for personae, in a described "setting" and hinting at a story. That is, they are theatrical! They are bitchy, allusive to events off-stage, to a personality, even, that's off-stage. Always alive, still alive (despite an early, tragic death), Lang is perhaps the first woman poet in history to despair of her actual monetary debts. These are tone-of-voice works, totally vocal, startingly rhymed, choppy syntax, spare punctuation, interesting pronouns â Auden's complicit "we," the resented "you," the masklike "I." Something that remains very modern starts here.' Alice Notley Awards won by V.R. 'Bunny' Lang Commended, 2024 A Poetry Book Society Spring Special Commendation (The Miraculous Season)	Share this... Quick Links Carcanet Poetry Carcanet Classics Carcanet Fiction Carcanet Film Lives and Letters PN Review Video Carcanet Celebrates 50 Years! The Carcanet Blog Invisible Dog: Fabio Morbito, translated by Richard Gwyn read more Dante's Purgatorio: Philip Terry read more Billy 'Nibs' Buckshot: John Gallas read more Emotional Support Horse: Claudine Toutoungi read more PN Review 279: Elegies by Lorna Goodison read more Conjurors: Julian Orde read more
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