SOURCE: An interview with Lisel Mueller, in Finding the Words: Interviews With Poets Who Teach, Swallow Press, 1985, pp. 96–105.

In the following interview, Mueller discusses the Germanic nature of her verse, her thematic concerns, her impressions of American poetry, and the impact of teaching on her work.

Nancy Bunge: How has being bilingual influenced your consciousness of language?

Lisel Mueller: We learn language by imitation; even people who don't know the grammar of their own language will speak it correctly if they hear it spoken correctly. Usage is another thing we just pick up. We don't think about our native language at all. But when you switch to another language, you are conscious of everything. You're conscious of the grammatical constructions, you're conscious of the phrasing, you're conscious of the idioms, you're conscious of each word—what it means, how it is used in its various forms, its derivation...