Alive Together: New and Selected Poems

Lisel Mueller

ISBN 10: 0807121282 / ISBN 13: 9780807121283

Published by Louisiana State University Press, 1996

About this Item

Seller Inventory # 7983588

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Alive Together: New and Selected Poems
• Publisher: Louisiana State University Press
• Publication Date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0807121282
• ISBN 13: 9780807121283
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry

In a collection that represents over thirty-five years of her writing life, this distinguished poet explores a wide range of subjects, which include her cultural and family history and reflect her fascination with music and the discoveries offered by language. In fact, her book is a testament to the miraculous power of language to interpret and transform our world. 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 morality―“the hard, dry smack of death against the glass.”


In the title piece Mueller brings a sense of enduring and unclouded wonder to a recognition of all those whose lives might have been our own. “Speaking of marvels,” says the poem’s speaker, “I am alive.” Thus we, too―alive together―are marvels, and so are our children:


who―but for endless ifs―


might have missed out on being alive


together with marvels and follies


and longings and lies and wishes


and error and humor and mercy


and journeys and voices and faces


and colors and summers and mornings


and knowledge and tears and chance.


Imaginative, poignant, and wise―Alive Together is a marvelous book, an act of faith and courage in the face of life’s enduring mystery.

About the Author

Winner of the 2002 Ruth Lilly Prize given by Poetry magazine and a founding member of the Poetry Center of Chicago, Lisel Mueller was the author of seven volumes of poems: Alive Together, winner of the 1997 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry; The Need to Hold Still, awarded the 1981 National Book Award for Poetry; Waving from Shore, recipient of a 1990 Carl Sandburg Award; The Private Life, the 1975 Lamont Poetry Selection of the Academy of American Poets; and three other volumes.