D.L. Lang is an internationally published poet whose work has appeared in 80 anthologies worldwide. Her poem “American Dream” is included in the Vagabond Lunar Collection which will be archived on the moon via the Lunar Codex project, traveling in November 2024 to the Nobile Crater. Her work has also appeared in the Benicia Herald, California Quarterly, Suisun Valley Review, Jewish Journal of Los Angeles, ReformJudaism.org, and Maintenant.
Lang was proclaimed Poet Laureate of Vallejo, California on October 10, 2017 and served through 2019, hosting the Poetry in Notion poetry circle, National Poetry Month events, and other poetry shows at the Solano County Library. Lang edited the anthology Verses, Voices, & Visions of Vallejo as a fundraiser for the Vallejo Peace Project. She served as a judge of poetry for the Solano County Library’s Teen Writing Contest and judged performance for the Solano County Fair, Solano County Poetry Out Loud and Vallejo Poetry Slam. In 2018 she attended the historic poet laureate gathering in Tujunga.
Lang has won numerous ribbons for poetry and creative writing at the Solano, Marin, San Mateo, and Alameda County Fairs. Lang was one of ten winners of the Curbside Haiku contest in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and her haiku was displayed around downtown Tulsa and is archived at the Woody Guthrie Center. She won 3rd place in the City Limits Publishing Protest Poetry contest in 2020. She has received proclamations from the California State Senate, California Arts Council, and Vallejo City Council for her poetic contributions and service as poet laureate.
Lang has performed hundreds of times at literary events, political demonstrations, art galleries, county fairs and festivals. Highlights include performing at the 2023 Woody Guthrie Folk Festival at the History Center in Okemah as one of the Woody Guthrie Poets being accompanied by David Amram and standing on a replica of Woody’s front porch. She has performed at the Flyway Festival, Laborfest, Unity Day, Culver City Book Festival, Bay Area Book Festival, Scissortail Creative Writing Festival, Alameda County Fair, Solano County Fair, and San Mateo County Fair. She has been a featured poet at many bookstores, libraries, and poetry shows around the Bay Area, including Alibi Bookshop, Book Passage, and Revolution Books.
Using her poetry as a tool for political action Lang has often used her voice to speak out at demonstrations for social justice including abortion rights with RiseUp4AbortionRights, workers’ rights with LaborFest, and prisoner’s rights with the IEC. As poet laureate she spoke at local demonstrations for Families Belong Together, Vallejo United Against Hatred and Anti-Semitism, International Peace Day, performed in a multi-city Poets Laureate for Social Justice Tour, and gave the invocation at the 2019 Vallejo Women’s March. She gave a talk to teenagers about writing poetry for causes for the Solano County Office of Education’s Art is Power program. In 2024 the Vallejo City Council honored her with a proclamation as one of several local activists as part of Women’s History Month.
She is a member of the Revolutionary Poets Brigade and the IWW’s Printing & Publishing / Freelance Journalism Union. She has also written articles for the People’s Tribune and People’s World. She has performed protest poetry for in person and online events hosted by Revolution Books, the League of Revolutionaries for a New America, and CPUSA.
KPFA, KPOO, KZCT, and KALW have broadcast Lang’s work. Lang has also made regular live on air appearances on Art Beat Poetry Hour since March 2018. She is a regular performer at Poetry by the Bay since April 2015, and wrote the foreword to founder Kyrah Ayers’ debut poetry collection, My Light. She also wrote a blurb for Dee Allen’s Rusty Gallows. Fred Ross-Perry, Greg Perkins, and Jon Carrube have all transformed her words into songs.
Alongside Erika Snyder in 2018 she co-founded Vallejo Poetry Society which provides resources to local poets. Her paperbacks can be purchased at Revolution Books Berkeley, Vallejo’s Alibi Bookshop, and Bookshop Benicia.
Lang was born in Bad Hersfeld, Germany. As a child she lived in Herleshausen, Germany, Santa Fe, Texas, Alexandria, Louisiana, and Enid, Oklahoma. She holds an A.S. in General Studies from Northern Oklahoma College. While living in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, she obtained a B.A. in Film Studies with a minor in Judaic Studies from the University of Oklahoma. She lived in San Rafael, California prior to settling in Vallejo, California.
Read reviews of her work from Kirkus.
Contact D.L. Lang at [email protected]
