Lisel Mueller Books

I am amazed by her power. In her hands, words spring to life and life springs to words. Her mind plants the living experience in a kiss on the hand and flings it to her audience like affectionate royalty waving to an attentive crowd.

She was born in Hamburg, Germany and the "Curriculum Vitae" poem in this volume beautifully articulates her immigration to the United States and her life here. Mueller was recently awarded one of the largest prizes in literature, the 2002 Ruth Lilly Prize -- $100,000.00. Her poetry is worth that, and more.

Her Mother's death "hurt" her into poetry, she writes here, and yet the observations she gives through these poems are pure redemption. What she experiences is what we all know, and she offers it to us with reverence and respect in sparkling language of pure gold.

When she stumbles on the fact of aging: "One day," she writes, "on a crowded elevator, everyone's face was younger than mine. . . .The brilliant days and nights are breathless in their hurry."

I love everything she's written and eagerly wait for more.
One short poem just to treat you to an example of what poetry can be:

"EX MACHINA
"My word processor does not know Shakespeare.
It balks at ripeness, stops me at Othello
and Desdemona. They are not
in its vocabulary. On the other hand
it does not question arrogance and power,
accepts betrayal, jealousy and grief,
uncomprehending. They are on the list.

"I am reminded of the face
of the young killer on the screen
the other night. He knew the words
gun and crime and prison.
He even knew the word guilty,
but when he said it, his eyes were blank."

Buy this book -- and all her books if you can find them. Keep them nearby so you can reach into a poem when you need to be reminded what living is for.

This book of poetry won the Pulitzer Prize. She writes about a variety of topics, which makes her writing so easily accessible depending on whatever mood you're in or what you want to read.

Her poetry about birds is particularly detailed and lovely. As is the poetry about her mother, about death, abuse, about relationships...I can't imagine you'd be disappointed. Support POETS, support your own imagination and dreams - buy this book -- add this to your collection or give it as a gift. The title poem, Alive Together, is superb. Some other favorites: The Blind Leading the Blind, Why I need the Birds, When I am Asked, Things, Mirrors, Missing the Dead, and JOY.

here's a bit of When I am Asked:

when I am asked/how I began writing poems, I talk about the indifference of nature.

It was soon after my mother died, a brilliant June day, everything blooming.

I sat on a gray stone bench/ringed with the ingenue faces/of pink and white impatiens/and placed my grief/in the mouth of language,
the only thing that would grieve with me.

RECOMMENDED!

I treasure this book. It is beautiful, clear, and profound. Mueller's words and perspective awaken me with each reading. Robyn Johnson

If you are looking for one poem about relationships, "Alive Together" is the one. And with the rest of the poems in this amazing collection you'll find more truth, beauty and life. Get this book. Read this book. Send "Alive Together" to your significant other.

Lisel Mueller is hands down one of the contemporary masters of the free verse form. In her second language she writes of exile, reclamation, home, beauty. She excels at the persona poem, writing devastating sequences on (among others) Hellen Keller, Patty Hearst, Monet, Schumann, Bach, Brendel, and Mary Shelly. This New and Selected will lead your straight to Mueller's individual collections, worth every penny.

Though half of the book is reprints of poems from Mueller's first book 'Dependencies,' this is a must-have for what follows: essays and interviews with Mueller that are unavailable anywhere else. Mueller, the 1997 Pulitzer Prize winner is truly an undiscovered treasure, and a master craftswoman of the "vers libre" poem. Among other things, she discusses syntax, diction, linguistics, memory, exile, the writing life, and includes a dynamic essay on the process of revision.

Had I read this collection before her others, I would have fallen in love with this crafter of images and emotions in a different way. That said, I expected this to be a new collection, and was slightly disappointed to discover it to be a reprint. The poetry is vivid, but not as smooth as her other works. It is like a collection of sharp steel: bright with edges and tips. Her other books like _Alive Together: New and Selected Poems_, and _Waving From Shore_ are like intricate Spanish or Japanese swords; beautiful and intellectually/emotionally dangerous.

I was enchanted by Mueller immediately after reading the first poem in this book. "The Blind Leading the Blind." I read the words, "something with wings went crazy against my chest once," and felt that exact motion in a familiar way. Her serious tone gives extraordinary weight to words. Her descriptions of love, admiration and nature are careful and surprising. While not every poem moved me, a good number of them did and it was worth it to read this poetry for phrases such as "O there is hope that lambs of snow will cover the wounded ground with the simple charity of whiteness one of these autumn nights, muffling our mouths out of questions after the sense of things." (from In Memory of Anton Webern, dead September15, 1945.) Dependencies is for those who appreciate the weight of lovely words.

This work won the NATIONAL BOOK AWARD for POETRY.

I have read a lot ..... did I say a lot? I meant enormous amounts of..... poetry. Classical, modern, cultural and everything in between. I am not fond of many contemporary poets because of the urge in them to write as obscure as possible.

This work, however, is good. It certainly is not Lord Byron, and no one will mistake Mueller for Yeats, yet, there is not a lot of wonderful poetry being published at present (though a lot is being published).

For a lark I bought this book, along with a bunch of others, and was pleasantly surprised to see some decent poetry. "NIGHT SONG" is my favorite, but is somewhat contrived. I also like "SOMETIMES, WHEN THE LIGHT."