Life and Career
Mueller was born in Hamburg, Germany, in 1924 and immigrated to America at the age of 15. Her father, Fritz C. Neumann, was a professor at Evansville College. Her mother died in 1953. "Though my family landed in the Midwest, we lived in urban or suburban environments," she once wrote. She and her husband, Paul Mueller (d. 2001) built a home in Lake Forest, Illinois in the 1960s, where they raised two daughters and lived for many years. Mueller currently resides in a retirement community in Chicago. Her poems are extremely accessible, yet intricate and layered. While at times whimsical and possessing a sly humor, there is an underlying sadness in much of her work.
She graduated from the University of Evansville in 1944 and has taught at the University of Chicago, Elmhurst College in Illinois, and Goddard College in Plainfield, Vermont.
Mueller has written book reviews for the Chicago Daily News.
Read more about this topic: Lisel Mueller
Famous quotes containing the words life and/or career:
“Your faith an’ trouth yese never get
Nor our trew Love shall never twain
Till ye come within my bower
And kiss me both cheek and chin.
My mouth it is full cold, Margret,
It has the smell now of the ground;
An’ if I kiss thy com’ly mouth
Thy life days will not be long.”
—Unknown. Clerk Saunders (l. 109–116)
“What exacerbates the strain in the working class is the absence of money to pay for services they need, economic insecurity, poor daycare, and lack of dignity and boredom in each partner’s job. What exacerbates it in upper-middle class is the instability of paid help and the enormous demands of the career system in which both partners become willing believers. But the tug between traditional and egalitarian models of marriage runs from top to bottom of the class ladder.”
—Arlie Hochschild (20th century)