Lisel Mueller

Simple Ways to Celebrate National Poetry Month

April 30, 2021



Reading poetry is a simple pleasure that I don’t indulge in as often as I’d like. Even though I enjoy it, it sometimes feels too “hard.” I know a lot of people feel that way, or they think poetry is boring or confusing. And it certainly can be. But it can also be funny, sweet, thought provoking, and powerful. Witness the furor caused by Amanda Gorman’s poem from this year’s presidential inauguration. 


April is National Poetry Month and in honor of that, I’m sharing a poem below, and a few links to other resources related to National Poetry Month or poetry in general. If you have any favorite poems or poets, please do share in the comments below!  


30 Ways to Celebrate the 25th Annual National Poetry Month at Home or Online

 

It’s National Poetry Month—No Foolin’


Finding Solace in Poetry


American Life in Poetry has a new editor and a new look, and I still think it’s one of the best ways to get a taste of modern poetry.

 

Knopf Doubleday offers a free poem-a-day service during the month of April (click here to sign up for next year) and occasional news about the poets they publish.


Today’s poem, with an introduction by Ted Kooser:


It’s not at all unusu­al for a poet who’s been impressed by some­one else’s poem to think, ​“I wish I’d writ­ten THAT!” I’ve nev­er read a poem by the late Lisel Mueller — and I’ve read near­ly all of them — when I didn’t feel just that way. Mueller died at age 96 this past Feb­ru­ary [2020]. Here’s the poem that stands as an epi­graph to her Pulitzer Prize win­ning book, Alive Togeth­er: New and Select­ed Poems, pub­lished by Louisiana State Uni­ver­si­ty Press.

 

In Passing


How swiftly the strained honey
of afternoon light
flows into darkness

and the closed bud shrugs off
its special mystery
in order to break into blossom

as if what exists, exists
so that it can be lost
and become precious


We do not accept unsolicited submissions. American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©1996 by Lisel Mueller, “In Passing,” from Alive Together: New and Selected Poems, (Louisiana State University Press, 1996). Poem reprinted by permission of Louisiana State University Press. Introduction copyright © 2021 by The Poetry Foundation.

 

 

Inanimate objects

In Our Image

August 14, 2013


Here’s an observant and thoughtful poem by Lisel Mueller about the way we’ve assigned human characteristics to the inanimate things about us. Mueller lives in Illinois and is one of our most distinguished poets. [Introduction by Ted Kooser.]

Things 

What happened is, we grew lonely
living among the things,
so we gave the clock a face,
the chair a back,
the table four stout legs
which will never suffer fatigue.

We fitted our shoes with tongues
as smooth as our own
and hung tongues inside bells
so we could listen
to their emotional language,

and because we loved graceful profiles
the pitcher received a lip,
the bottle a long, slender neck.

Even what was beyond us
was recast in our image;
we gave the country a heart,
the storm an eye,
the cave a mouth
so we could pass into safety.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Reprinted by permission of Louisiana State University Press from Alive Together by Lisel Mueller. Copyright ©1996 by Lisel Mueller. Introduction copyright © 2013 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006.