Out now! Very proud of my dear friend and colleague Martha Patterson. Excerpt here: www.hnn.us/article/a-ph...

Out now: "The essays and poems in this folio are a testament to how Arnold always gestured out beyond herself, drawing others . . . into her orbit. This folio is Chicago Review’s way of returning that gesture." www.chicagoreview.org/liz-arnold-f...

Lingering Inland

Check it out: the pre-order link for Lingering Inland: A Literary Tour of the Midwest! This book collects dozens of #LiteraryLandscapes essays, and pre-orders will ship in November—perfect for Christmas! www.press.uillinois.edu/books/?id=p0...

Inherited my poet mom's bad eyesight: There's an extra "n" in D'Annunzio.

Lisel Mueller's father, Fritz Neumann, eked out a living teaching German-Jewish children in private Italian schools set up for this purpose. One was in Gardone Riviera, close to D'Annuzio's estate. Visiting as a child, my mother saw old D'Annunzio driving out of his gates, to bystander applause.

Midwestern Miscellany LIII.1 (Spring 2025) Amazon.com: Midwestern Miscellany LIII.1 (Spring 2025): 9798991605922: Nemec Foster, Linda: Books

New from the Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature. Includes my essay on Lisel Mueller's childhood under Hitler and how its terrors, and the refugee experience, inflected almost all her work, including poems of Midwestern "domesticity." Ed Linda Nemic Foster! www.amazon.com/Midwestern-M...

After I visited Gabriele D'Annuzio's estate in Italy, I began doing research, and discovered the only book by an American on D'Annuzio's neo-fascist Fiume expedition was by Michael Ledeen. All the more shocking, then, to see Ledeen and his wife tweeting their support of the Jan 6 disinfo campaign.

Michael A. Ledeen, Reagan Adviser Involved in Iran-Contra, Dies at 83

This obit of Michael Ledeen is missing an awful lot... like his relationship with Michael Flynn and the sordid role he and his wife Barbara played in the background of Jan 6.

Relevant, alas. But the copious quotations of 16th-century language make the reading inspiriting.

My non-AI-scripted summer reading list of books by friends! All thriving, save Reginald Shepherd, a very kind person (tho he didn't suffer fools). His face always spoke, even when he held it still, as in this wonderful picture. Here I think he's ready to laugh. Looking forward to all of these.

Yes, I'm her daughter! One of two, both of us in our 60s now. I am always glad to hear of poets who read her, so I'm most grateful for your message.

You're welcome! (I occasionally check out Lisel Mueller posts on Bluesky.)

Yes, but Whistler came in only after she reached the 11th of 20 drafts. She wrote about the draft process for this poem in an essay called "'After Whistler': A Poem in Search of Itself," included in the essay collection "Learning to Play by Ear."

The paradox of joy (which is our moral obligation in a world rife with reasons for despair), lensed through a Nick Cave song and a Lisel Mueller poem www.themarginalian.org/2024/09/05/j...

The "hip-hop/poetry/spoken word nexus" that supposedly makes the town so great smuggles an awful lot of aesthetic variety and ambition into the middle term. I lived in or near the city for decades and saw the stifling effects of "big shoulders" stereotypes.

Notable that the NYT's "Read Your Way Around Chicago" featured no named poets after Gwendolyn Brooks, except Kathleen Rooney, who is cited for a novel. Yet the author calls current-day Chicago "the best poetry town in the country"!

Lisel Mueller, 1970, for #smallpoemssunday.

Can't wait for the semester to end, when I can catch up on the collection of 8 Lynne Sachs films on OVID.tv. Feature-length to short, including the lovely "Visit to Bernadette Mayer's Childhood Home."

The precise observations people trying to carry on lives subsumed in propaganda brings a chill of recognition, on nearly every page of Iris Origo's journal. "How it was" under Il Duce is how it is now.

I think I know Lisel Mueller's work. Then a poem I never heard her read when I was a child pops up to surprise me. Today it's "The Art of Forgetting."

Seen at the Fence Books table, AWP: Brian Young's "Site Acquisition" -- a wild book by my late, wild husband, who died in April, 11 years ago. They were down to their last copy!

I think all American writers should be keeping journals/diaries of this presidency. As public censorship increases, the record of daily experience will be important—and contested—in the chronicles of our time.

Coming this Saturday to AWP: "A Tribute to Elizabeth Arnold (1958-2024)." In celebration of a great American poet and dear friend.

Lisel Mueller at home, 1960s.

Spent a wonderful week with these folks in 2024. Highly recommended! Great people, time to do your own work, beautiful WI location, and . . . baby goats. residencyonthefarm.org

Never me but also true in 1990 / same could be said for "Superbowl Shuffle"

She was my mother -- welcome to her work! I also really love this poem.

All of my mother's poetry books are in there -- for which I'm supposed to be receiving royalties! (Four of my own little poems, too.)