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Lisel Mueller Quotes (1924-2020)
Poet
About Lisel Mueller
Lisel Mueller (born Elisabeth Neumann, February 8, 1924 β February 21, 2020) was a German-born American poet, translator and academic teacher. Her family fled the Nazi regime, and she arrived in the U.S. in 1939 at the age of 15. She worked as a literary critic and taught at the University of Chicago, Elmhurst College and Goddard College. She began writing poetry in the 1950s and published her first collection in 1965, after years of self-study. She received awards including the National Book Award in 1981 and the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1997, as the only German-born poet awarded that prize.
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βHeartland
When did we enter the heartless age? ...β
When did we enter the heartless age? ...β
βIn Passing
How swiftly...
...as if what exists, exists
so that it can be lost
and become preciousβ
How swiftly...
...as if what exists, exists
so that it can be lost
and become preciousβ
βPigeons
...Once they were elegant, carefree;
they called to each other in rich, deep voices,
and we called them doves
and welcomed them to our gardens.β
...Once they were elegant, carefree;
they called to each other in rich, deep voices,
and we called them doves
and welcomed them to our gardens.β
βHappy and Unhappy Families II
In the play, we know what must happen
long before it happens,
and we call it a tragedy.
Here at home, this winter,
we have no name for it.β
In the play, we know what must happen
long before it happens,
and we call it a tragedy.
Here at home, this winter,
we have no name for it.β
βA Nude by Edward Hopper
...this body
is home, my childhood
is buried here, my sleep
rises and sets inside,
desire
crested and wore itself thin
between these bonesβ
I live here.β
...this body
is home, my childhood
is buried here, my sleep
rises and sets inside,
desire
crested and wore itself thin
between these bonesβ
I live here.β
βMessages
...Dogs talk to us with their bodies
and accept our answers in words.
Holes ask for rain; the stunted corpse of an elm
is revealed as a sign. We keep breaking
the code of the dead, we reply.β
...Dogs talk to us with their bodies
and accept our answers in words.
Holes ask for rain; the stunted corpse of an elm
is revealed as a sign. We keep breaking
the code of the dead, we reply.β
βIn the Thriving Season
In memory of my mother.
Now she catches fistfuls of sun
...My first child in her first spring
stretches bare hands back to your darkness
and heals your silence...β
In memory of my mother.
Now she catches fistfuls of sun
...My first child in her first spring
stretches bare hands back to your darkness
and heals your silence...β
βIn The Rag And
Bone Shop
Trade me, shopkeeper Yeats,
one filthy rag, one bone
that can make poetry
for all the jeweled bits.
...A rag to light a fire,
a bone to whistle on!
Proprietary, proud...β
Bone Shop
Trade me, shopkeeper Yeats,
one filthy rag, one bone
that can make poetry
for all the jeweled bits.
...A rag to light a fire,
a bone to whistle on!
Proprietary, proud...β
βBach Transcribing Vivaldi
One remembered the sunrise, how clearly it gave
substance and praise to the mountains...
the other imagined twilight, the setting in blood,
and a valley of fallen leaves where a stranger might rest.β
One remembered the sunrise, how clearly it gave
substance and praise to the mountains...
the other imagined twilight, the setting in blood,
and a valley of fallen leaves where a stranger might rest.β
βThe Biographer
I came to live in your house
restored your pictures, brought back your books,
discovered the key to your desk,
moved the yellow chair to the windowβ
and now you come in, asking
whose house this is.β
I came to live in your house
restored your pictures, brought back your books,
discovered the key to your desk,
moved the yellow chair to the windowβ
and now you come in, asking
whose house this is.β
βThe Levitation
...Whatever exists is floating:
words without weight, bodies without resistance,
feelings wavy as trailing scarves
move through the gently dissolving center
between heaven and earth where we live,
briefly, in a mild light.β
...Whatever exists is floating:
words without weight, bodies without resistance,
feelings wavy as trailing scarves
move through the gently dissolving center
between heaven and earth where we live,
briefly, in a mild light.β
βTears
She looked at the watchful gazelles
and the heavy-lidded frogs;
she looked at the glass-eyed birds
and nervous, black-eyed mice.
None of them wept, not even the fish
...Not even the man. Only she
carried the sea inside her body.β
She looked at the watchful gazelles
and the heavy-lidded frogs;
she looked at the glass-eyed birds
and nervous, black-eyed mice.
None of them wept, not even the fish
...Not even the man. Only she
carried the sea inside her body.β
βImmortality
In Sleeping Beauty's castle
the clock strikes one hundred years
and the girl in the tower returns to the world [unchanged].
...fear persists, and...
the anger that causes fear persists,
...its trajectory can't be changed
or broken, only interrupted.β
In Sleeping Beauty's castle
the clock strikes one hundred years
and the girl in the tower returns to the world [unchanged].
...fear persists, and...
the anger that causes fear persists,
...its trajectory can't be changed
or broken, only interrupted.β
βOn Finding a Bird's Bones in the Woods
Even Einstein, gazing
at the slender ribs of the world,
...even he, unlearning
the bag and baggage of notion,
must have kept some shred
in which to clothe that shape,
as we, who cannot escape
...swaddle
this tiny world of bone
in all that we have known...β
Even Einstein, gazing
at the slender ribs of the world,
...even he, unlearning
the bag and baggage of notion,
must have kept some shred
in which to clothe that shape,
as we, who cannot escape
...swaddle
this tiny world of bone
in all that we have known...β
βThe Blind Leading the Blind
Take my hand. There are two of us in this cave.
The sound you hear is water; you will hear it forever.
...You will learn toads from diamonds, the fist from the palm,
love from the sweat of love, falling from flying.
...Once I fell off a precipice. Once I found gold.
...There are two of us here. Touch me.β
Take my hand. There are two of us in this cave.
The sound you hear is water; you will hear it forever.
...You will learn toads from diamonds, the fist from the palm,
love from the sweat of love, falling from flying.
...Once I fell off a precipice. Once I found gold.
...There are two of us here. Touch me.β
βJanuary Afternoon,
With Billie Holiday
...The foolish old songs were right,
the heart does, actually, ache
from trying to push beyond
itself...
all that can be imagined;
space is not enough...
Desire has no object, it simply happens,
rises and floats, lighter than airβ
but she knows that. ...
tomorrow is something she remembers.β
With Billie Holiday
...The foolish old songs were right,
the heart does, actually, ache
from trying to push beyond
itself...
all that can be imagined;
space is not enough...
Desire has no object, it simply happens,
rises and floats, lighter than airβ
but she knows that. ...
tomorrow is something she remembers.β
βA Grackle Observed
Watching the black grackle
come out...
into the sun, I am dazzled
by an unsuspected sheen,
yellow, purple and green,
...until he, unaware
of what he means...
hops back...
and leaves the shining part
...behind, as though
brightness must outgrow
its... worldly dress
and enter the mind...
as vision... pure light.β
Watching the black grackle
come out...
into the sun, I am dazzled
by an unsuspected sheen,
yellow, purple and green,
...until he, unaware
of what he means...
hops back...
and leaves the shining part
...behind, as though
brightness must outgrow
its... worldly dress
and enter the mind...
as vision... pure light.β
βThings
...we grew lonely
living among the things,
so we gave the clock a face,
the chair a back,
the table four stout legs
...We fitted our shoes with tongues
...and hung tongues inside bells
so we could listen
...the pitcher received a lip,
the bottle a long, slender neck.
...we gave the country a heart,
the storm an eye,
the cave a mouth...
β
...we grew lonely
living among the things,
so we gave the clock a face,
the chair a back,
the table four stout legs
...We fitted our shoes with tongues
...and hung tongues inside bells
so we could listen
...the pitcher received a lip,
the bottle a long, slender neck.
...we gave the country a heart,
the storm an eye,
the cave a mouth...
β
βA Holy Madness
To say thou to the sun
and call the wind brother;
to be humble before a grain of sand
and speak familiarly to the sea;
to preach to the birds in earnest
...o holy love, sweet lunacy,
which of us, seeing a child
exhorting a deaf robin,
does not bless that child
for the paradise in his head?
Be praised, my Lord, for Francis,
brother to lilies...β
To say thou to the sun
and call the wind brother;
to be humble before a grain of sand
and speak familiarly to the sea;
to preach to the birds in earnest
...o holy love, sweet lunacy,
which of us, seeing a child
exhorting a deaf robin,
does not bless that child
for the paradise in his head?
Be praised, my Lord, for Francis,
brother to lilies...β
β"O Brave New World,
That Hath Such People In It"
Soon you will be like her, Prospero's daughter,
finding the door that leads out of yourself
...where you live with the gracious and light-footed
creatures
that thrive in the glaze of your art and freedom.
...Soon you will
...banish yourself from the one flawless place.β
That Hath Such People In It"
Soon you will be like her, Prospero's daughter,
finding the door that leads out of yourself
...where you live with the gracious and light-footed
creatures
that thrive in the glaze of your art and freedom.
...Soon you will
...banish yourself from the one flawless place.β
βOn Reading An Anthology of Postwar German Poetry
America saved me
...I was not crushed
under rubble, nor was I beaten
along a frozen highway;
my children are not dead
of postwar hunger;
...I have forced no one
into a chamber of death.
...I know enough to refuse to say
that life is good,
but I act as though it were,
and skeptical about love, I survive
by the witness of my own.β
America saved me
...I was not crushed
under rubble, nor was I beaten
along a frozen highway;
my children are not dead
of postwar hunger;
...I have forced no one
into a chamber of death.
...I know enough to refuse to say
that life is good,
but I act as though it were,
and skeptical about love, I survive
by the witness of my own.β
βWhy I Need the Birds
...By the time I arrive at evening,
...they are turning
into the dreamwork of trees;
and all of us...
myself and the purple finches,
and rusty blackbirds,
the ruby cardinals,
the white-throated sparrows
with their liquid voicesβ
ride the dark curve of the earth
toward daylight, which they announce
from their high lookouts
before dawn has quite broken...β
...By the time I arrive at evening,
...they are turning
into the dreamwork of trees;
and all of us...
myself and the purple finches,
and rusty blackbirds,
the ruby cardinals,
the white-throated sparrows
with their liquid voicesβ
ride the dark curve of the earth
toward daylight, which they announce
from their high lookouts
before dawn has quite broken...β
Quotes About Lisel Mueller
Gain deeper perspective through quotes about Lisel Mueller from others.
The 1997 Pulitzer Prize Winner in Poetry on Lisel Mueller
β[H]er book is a testament to the miraculous power of language to interpret and transform our world. It is a testament that invites readers to share her vision of experiences we all have in common...β
Linda Nemec Foster on Lisel Mueller
β[H]er sense of the universality of the fairy tale to explore the human psyche gives her poems a metaphoric brilliance. And in the center of this brilliance is the power of the fairy tale-and, indeed, of the poem-to transform.β
Judith Kitchen on Lisel Mueller
β[Mueller's] sense of history gives her poems a rare philosophical intensity.β
Farah L. Miller on Lisel Mueller
βMueller's poem Muse... interprets art through an individual perspective and latches onto lonesome painted figures. The major influence on her poetry is her childhood experience fleeing Nazi Germany with her family. Having witnessed atrocities in her homeland and escaped death she is both aware of injustice and thankful. Specifically, she is concerned with her position as an outsider in America. ...The poem ...chronicles her own discovery of the painting's meaning in relation to her life. ...[S]he translates the image to the present day. She fills in and rounds the images within contexts. ...She means, how does any artist know her work will endure when they sit alone, isolated, commenting on a melancholy world?β
About Lisel Mueller
Lisel Mueller (born Elisabeth Neumann, February 8, 1924 β February 21, 2020) was a German-born American poet, translator and academic teacher. Her family fled the Nazi regime, and she arrived in the U.S. in 1939 at the age of 15. She worked as a literary critic and taught at the University of Chicago, Elmhurst College and Goddard College. She began writing poetry in the 1950s and published her first collection in 1965, after years of self-study. She received awards including the National Book Award in 1981 and the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1997, as the only German-born poet awarded that prize.