Douglas Spangle was born into the family of a park ranger and grew up with the habit of close and exact observation. His poems are based in observation of the natural world but explicitly rise into the world of human emotions and concerns. His years as a stagehand for the Münchner Kammerspiele Schauspielhaus gave him German as a language and close study of the poems of Peter Huchel; he is currently translating the Swiss-German poems of Clemens Umbricht and Florian Vetsch. His own work deals with transitions, collisions, time, love and death; his gifts of observation and expression give him a singular voice and vision. Who else could have written "Spark in the Stalk", that concise and poetic version of Guns, Germs, and Steel?

A White Concrete Day contains these 45 poems:

Gasket / The Tree Horse / A Thing About Bridges / The Jawbone / Wooden Eagles / West of Brawley / Cardston, Alberta / Isle Royale: Mt. Franklin / Jennings / Alfred Hitchcock / The Big Fire / The Magi / Cutting / Kindling / Pallet Factory Song / Walking in Thaw / The Yearling / The Gap / Inflight Notes / The Last Drugstore Lunch Counter / The Rising of the Moon / The Assassination of Arthur Fiedler - a recreation / White Wind / Supernova Tycho, 1572 / Elegy and Epitaph for Willis Eberman / Man in the Moon / Quarter Minus / 21^st. & Powell / Notes on St. Johns Bridge / Flying Ants / Orchestra / Old Men's Voices / Mr. Chang Composes a Letter / Scene from a / Famous Battle / View / Parting Scene / A Few things / The Printer's Hair / Radio Tirana / About / That Ice Storm / Her Camera / Villanoid / The Birches / August - 1959-1979 / Mullein / Spark in the Stalk