Poetry
Absent
I have been missing from this year’s spring.
Witness to the winter aconite and snowdrops, the first daffodils,
but not the tulips or hyacinths.
I did not see the goldeneyes again
before they left for the north.
In Irpin, a woman waters lilies and peonies in front of her home
dismantled by bombs.
The canes of her roses are still living though they may not bloom this year.
Yesterday I made it as far as the first patch of trout lilies
beside the muddy river:
the last blooms had waited for me.
Books
MY SOUL HAS NO CORNERS, translations of poems by Souad Labbize, available from Diálogos Books
LIKE THIS, poems, available from Unsolicited Press
Baalbek, translation of poetry by Nohad Salameh
DEAR GIRLS available from Dancing Girl Press or author
In the Press
I’d had Susanna Lang’s Travel Notes from the River Styx in my to-be-read pile for some time, and when I finally picked it up recently, reading it in one sitting, my first thought was that I wished I’d read it sooner. It’s just fantastic. You should all read it.. Read More
Lynn Domina,
A REVIEW A WEEK
Travel Notes from the River Styx contains some great poems that get to the emotional core of love, life and death. The poems are haunted and haunting, forcing me to read them more than once. I found the poems enjoyable and they will stay with me for a long time... I'd highly recommend this collection. Read More
Pamela Scott,
THE BOOK LOVERS BOUDOIR
Lang sets a mood of dreamy, elegiac mystery in the opening poem, “Road Trip,” with “Carla Bruni… singing Je rêve comme je respire” on the car’s speakers as the driver follows familiar roads to arrive at a motel room peopled by her dearest ghosts... Read More
Kathleen Kirk,
ESCAPE INTO LIFE
Bio
Susanna Lang divides her time between Chicago, Illinois, and Uzès, France. She is the author of three full-length books of poetry and has translated the poetry of Yves Bonnefoy, Souad Labbize and Hélène Dorion. Her most recent collection, Like This, was published by Unsolicited Books in 2022. Earlier collections include Travel Notes from the River Styx (Terrapin Books, 2017), Tracing the Lines (Brick Road Poetry Press, 2013) and Even Now (The Backwaters Press, 2008). Words in Stone, her translation of poems by Yves Bonnefoy, was published by the University of Massachusetts Press in 1976, and My Soul Has No Corners, her translation of poetry by Souad Labbize, is available now from Diálogos Books.
Journals and online publications in which poems, translations and reviews have appeared include American Life in Poetry, The Slowdown, Verse Daily, The Common, december magazine, Asymptote, Cider Press Review, North American Review, Stonecoast Review, Prairie Schooner, Southern Humanities Review and Rhino Poetry. ​She has won numerous awards, including the 2021 Crosswinds Poetry Award, the Prime Number Poetry Prize in 2015, the Inkwell Poetry Competition in 2009, and a 1999 Illinois Arts Council Award, along with multiple nominations for the Pushcart Prize. She was a 2010 and 2015 Hambidge Fellow and received a 2011 Emerging Writer Fellowship from The Writer’s Center in Bethesda, MD.
​
​
A longtime educator in the Chicago area, she has taught literacy, literature and creative writing in grades 5-12, as well as graduate level education courses at National Louis and Northeastern Illinois Universities. She has led adult poetry workshops in public libraries and for organizations such as the Chicago Public Library, Northwest Cultural Council, Rhino Poetry Forum, Center for College Access and Success (Northeastern Illinois University), Boundless Readers and The Writer’s Center (Bethesda, MD). She has also written curriculum or consulted for the Illinois Institute of Technology, the Poetry Foundation, and ThinkCERCA.
Reviews
of Poetry
Upon entering the site, click on the above image. The review starts on page 12.
News & Events
18
Tues
July
Launch party for Uncomfortable Ecologies by Elizabeth Joy Levinson. I will be reading with Elizabeth and Darci Schummer, in an extraordinary setting--The Insect Asylum,
2870 N. Milwaukee.
01
Thurs
June
Available for pre-order from Diálogos Books: my translations of My Soul Has No Corners, poetry by the Algerian-French poet, Souad Labbize.
19
Sun
March
I look forward to joining the Sunday Reading Series at the Hungry Brain (2319 W. Belmont). Watch the website for details!
24
Fri
March
Launch reading for my chapbook, Like This, at City Lit Books (2523 N. Kedzie), 6:30-7:30. Kenyatta Rogers and Cecilia Pinto will read with me.
19
Thurs
Jan
Asymptote has published six poems by Hélène Dorion in my translation.
03
Wed
Aug
Jill! is celebrating Women in Translation Month with a playlist I curated of Third Coast Translators Collective (TCTC) translators reading selections from women writers around the world, including my translation of poems from Mes forêts by Hélène Dorion.
26
Fri
Nov
Two new publications! Dear Girls, a chapbook of poems out from dancing girl press, and Baalbek, a translation from the French of Nohad Salameh, released in trilingual edition from Atelier du Grand Tétras. It will be easier for you to contact me directly for copies.
18
Fri
June
Mudlark has published my e-chapbook, Among Other Stones: Conversations with Yves Bonnefoy, that revisits and revises translations I made years ago and adds new poems of mine in response. Cover art by George Nama, a friend and collaborator of Yves'.
24
Wed
Feb
Thanks to Crosswinds Poetry Journal and Margaret Gibson for awarding first prize to my poem, Inspection, which will be published in spring 2021.