Violet Ranney "Bunny" Lang (married name Phillips; May 11, 1924 – July 29, 1956) was an American poet and playwright. She was a co-founder of the Poets' Theatre in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and a close associate of several writers of the New York School, particularly Frank O'Hara.
Early Life and Education
Lang was born into a Boston family, the youngest of six daughters of Malcolm Burrage Lang (1881–1972), an organist and director of music at King's Chapel, Boston, and Ethel Ranney Lang. She attended Hannah More Academy in Maryland. A debutante, she entered the University of Chicago in 1942 but remained only a few semesters. During World War II, she joined the Canadian Women's Army Corps. After the war, she returned briefly to school and served as an editor for the Chicago Review.
Career
By 1950, Lang had returned to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she became a friend of Frank O'Hara. She was a founding member of the Poets' Theatre, established in Cambridge in 1950, and took on numerous roles in its productions, including directing, acting, and designing sets and costumes. For the theatre's opening night, she directed O'Hara's Try! Try!.
Lang wrote two verse dramas: Fire Exit (1952), described as a protofeminist rewrite of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice set in a burlesque house, and I Too Have Lived in Arcadia (1954), which drew upon her love affair with painter Michael Goldberg. During her lifetime, she published poems in Poetry: A Magazine of Verse and other literary journals.
Personal Life and Death
In April 1955, Lang married Bradley Sawyer Phillips (1929–1991), a painter. She died of Hodgkin's disease at age 32 and was buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery following a funeral at Christ Church in Cambridge. Frank O'Hara wrote a series of poems from 1956 to 1959 in mourning her death.
Publication History
After her death, her widower Bradley Phillips self-published a volume of her work titled The Pitch (1962), containing 48 poems and her two plays, with a cover designed by Edward Gorey. Alison Lurie wrote a memoir of Lang, published privately in 1959, which was later combined with Lang's works into V.R. Lang: Poems & Plays with a Memoir by Alison Lurie (Random House, 1975). A new selected edition, The Miraculous Season: Selected Poems, edited by Rosa Campbell, was published in the UK in 2024, with a US edition scheduled for 2026.
Archival Holdings
Lang's papers, including manuscripts, drafts, and correspondence, are held at Harvard University's Houghton Library.
