A native of Germany and now a U.S. citizen, Lisel Mueller was born on February 8, 1924. She earned a B.A. in sociology at the University of Evansville and did graduate work in comparative literature, with an emphasis on folklore and mythology, at Indiana University. She has been a visiting writer at a number of institutions, including the University of Chicago and Washington University in St. Louis.

Mueller is the author of seven books of poetry: Dependencies (1965); The Private Life (1976), which was the Lamont Poetry Selection of the Academy of American Poets; Voices from the Forest (1977); The Need to Hold Still (1981), which received the National Book Award; Second Language (1986); Waving from Shore (1989), which received the Carl Sandburg Prize and Alive Together: New and Selected Poems (1996). She has also translated several works from the German.

In addition to the National Book Award and the Lamont prize, Mueller has received the Emily Clark Balch Prize, the Eunice Tietjens Memorial Prize, the English-Speaking Union Prize, the Jacob Glatstein Translation Award, the Theodore Roethke Prize, and a Pushcart Prize.

Mueller lives in Lake Forest, Illinois.

photo: Lucy Mueller