Lisel Mueller

“. . .because we had survivedsisters and brothers, daughters and sons,we discovered bones that rosefrom the dark earth and sangas white birds in the treesBecause the story of our lifebecomes our lifeBecause each of us tells the same storybut tells it differentlyand none of us tells it the same way twice . . (from, Why We Tell Stories)”

“Everything is autobiography, even if one writes something that is totally objective. The fact that it's a subject that seizes you makes it autobiographical.”

“My husband says spring will be early.He says this every year,And every year I disagree.He needs me, the dark side of the planetary equation.Together we make the equinox.”

“Memory and poetry go together, absolutely. It is a matter of preserving and of remembering things.”

“When I was in college, I did do some writing of poetry, somewhat inspired, I think at that time, by Carl Sandburg, because English was still relatively new to me, and Sandburg, of course, wrote in a very easy-to-understand, very colloquial and informal manner.”

“I thought if only we could go onand meet again, shy as strangers.”

“Well, language seems to be something that obsesses me. I'm always writing about it.”

“Poetry, for me, is the answer to, 'How does one stay sane when private lives are being ransacked by public events?' It's something that hangs over your head all the time.”

“I am imprinted with the whole sense of European history, especially German history, going back to World War I, which really destroyed all the old values and culture. My grandparents had been reasonably well-off but they became quite poor, living in an attic apartment.”

“Now in the thriving season of lovewhen the bud relents into flower,your love turned absence has turned once more,and if my comforts fall soft as rainon her flutters, it is becauselove grows by what it remembers of love”

“at home the bookshelves connected heaven and earth.”