Featuring poems that engage songs by artists ranging from The White Stripes to Bruce Springsteen, David Bowie to Otis Redding; lists of albums; daily timestamps as poems; remixes and everything in between; Flashes of Life evokes not just the way we listen to music, but all the ways we interact with the music in our life.

Designed to highlight its concept-album-like nature, Flashes of Life is split into four sections, echoing the four sides of a double album, complete with multiple sleeve arts, bonus/“hidden” tracks, and handwritten opening and closing songs, echoing the physicality of placing a needle on vinyl.

This collection looks head-on at the music of memories. It is a map made of songs. And moments that stop life. Sparking the senses that make us human, Ling’s poems remind of us that we are a single, unique note in a song that has been playing long before we were born—a song that will play on long after we’re gone. 

Featuring artwork by Jimmie James, Flashes of Life engages and fuses music and pop culture and poetry into a book that is at once touching, funny, surprising, playful, and strikingly human.