That, she wrote, “caused me to be left unimpressed by the poets we studied in high school,” but then a fellow student introduced her to Carl Sandburg’s poetry. Di Piero, and others... by Lisel Mueller (read by Melissa Severin). The daughter of teachers, she and her family were forced to flee the Nazi regime when Mueller was 15. They immigrated to the US and settled in the Mid-west. ), A collection of poems addresses such topics as family history, music, language, art, and mortality. She won the U.S. National Book Award in 1981 and the Pulitzer Prize in 1997. Each of the poems speaks from a separate moment of experience. [3] She followed with her mother and her younger sister Ingeborg, arriving on 9 June 1939. Each is in a sense a second language, and in Mueller’s employ each gains expression in an imaginative and humanistic voice. In the front matter of this altogether miraculous book, where an epigraph would ordinarily appear, Mueller offers a short poem that becomes a kind of chorus line for the entire collection, but emerges as an especially harmonizing counterpart to “Immortality” in particular: Also co-translator of performing version of Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s play, “Das Salzburger Grosse Welttheater,” produced in Chicago at Goodman Theatre. They immigrated to the US and settled in the Midwest. Mueller attended the University of Evansville, where her father was a professor, and she performed her graduate study at Indiana University. Life and career. Her daughter Jenny Mueller, who confirmed the death, said Ms. Mueller had been dealing with the aftereffects of pneumonia. She was 96. She sometimes alludes to German fairy-tales by the Brothers Grimm, and quotes Bertold Brecht. Her serious writing of poetry began in 1953, after the death of her mother. Mueller attended the University of Evansville, where her father was a professor, and did her graduate study at Indiana University. Lisel Mueller, née Lisel Neumann, (born February 8, 1924, Hamburg, Germany—died February 21, 2020, Chicago, Illinois, U.S.), German-born American poet known for her warm introspective poetry. Lisel Mueller was born in Germany in 1924 but when the Nazi’s came into power her family immigrated to America where she became a much loved poet and translator. Lisel Mueller Bio Lisel Mueller was born in Germany in 1924 but when the Nazi’s came into power her family immigrated to America where she became a much loved poet and translator. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). Years later, she captured the moment in “When I Am Asked,” a poem that begins, “When I am asked how I began writing poems, I talk about the indifference of nature.” It concludes with this verse: I sat on a gray stone benchringed with the ingénue facesof pink and white impatiensand placed my griefin the mouth of language,the only thing that would grieve with me. In 1935, her father was interrogated by the Gestapo for four days. This collection won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1997. Lisel Mueller, who fled Hitler’s Germany as a teenager and became a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet in the United States, drawing on her family history for lyrical works about love, art, nature and loss — acknowledging pain even as she looked outward with joy — died Feb. 21 at a retirement community in Chicago. “Lisel Mueller’s poems are deeply felt and give pleasure because of their truth conveyed in sensuous terms. Elisabeth Annelore Neumann was born on Feb. 8, 1924, in Hamburg, Germany, to Fritz and Ilse (Burmester) Neumann. She also worked as a book reviewer for the Chicago Daily News before becoming a founding member of the Poetry Center of Chicago. “It is a testament that invites readers to share her vision of experiences we all have in common: sorrow, tenderness, desire, the revelations of art, and mortality —­ ‘the hard, dry smack of death against the glass.’”. See our Privacy Policy and Third Party Partners to learn more about the use of data and your rights. I found myself earmarking numbers of poems because they were compelling, satisfying, each a thing in itself.”—Richard Eberhart. 4 It was only after my husband and I built our house in Lake County, Illinois, near Libertyville, that my consciousness changed. Auden, T.S. ( She was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1997 for her volume Alive Together: New and Selected Poems. Lisel Mueller, who fled Hitler’s Germany as a teenager and became a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet in the United States, drawing on her family history for lyrical works about love, art, nature and loss — acknowledging pain even as she looked outward with joy — died Feb. 21 at a retirement community in Chicago. On the first morning in our new home I woke up to the mooing of cows. An earlier collection, "The Need to Hold Still," won the National Book Award in 1981, and Mueller's work has won numerous other awards. Lisel Mueller, who fled Hitler’s Germany as a teenager and became a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet in the United States, drawing on her family history for … Second Language is the fourth volume of work from the highly acclaimed poet Lisel Mueller. She was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1997 for her volume Alive Together: New and Selected Poems. The Art Institute was surrounded by railyards when it was first built, emblematic of Chicago’s roots in industry and the arts. When the Nazis came to power, he was dismissed. Hardcover Something went wrong. Mueller’s lyrical poetry bends toward the mythological, depicting fantastic characters and dreamlike milieus with the sturdy, accessible diction often found in folklore. Lisel Mueller 1924–2020 Lisel Mueller was born in Hamburg, Germany, on February 8, 1924, and came to the United States in 1939. [1], During her last years, Mueller resided in a retirement community in Chicago, Illinois. In 2002 she received the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize. The girl headlined the list, “Things I Will Need in the Past,” giving her mother a vision of time moving both forward and backward, a person in one version of reality passing someone — perhaps her double — in the other. Second Language is the fourth volume of work from the highly acclaimed poet Lisel Mueller. While her work is in English, it reflects her German roots. Her themes included language, nature and history, including her own flight from Nazi Germany. Composed, produced, and remixed: the greatest hits of poems about music. First came a bachelor’s degree in sociology at her father’s university, where she also met Mr. Mueller. [1], In 1943, she married Paul Mueller. Her other awards and honors include the Carl Sandburg Award, the Helen Bullis Award, the Ruth Lilly Prize, and a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship. Poems about the good guys, the villains, and the in-betweens. It was those early experiences that inspired themes pertaining to a cultural and family history in her poems.