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Gate, Ilze Mueller’s first book of poetry, takes the
mind on uncommon journeys, similar to her own peregrinations
after World War II. Leaving her native
Latvia
, Mueller acquired languages as her refugee
family lived in different countries. This linguistic skill,
honed at the
University
of
Chicago
and the
University
of
Minnesota
, later supported her work as a poet and
translator. She has translated Christa Reinig’s Idleness Is
the Root of All Love (Corvallis: Calyx, 1991) and the
poetry and prose of Latvian writers, including Vizma Belsevica,
in Latvian Literature (Riga: Atena, 2002-2003) and in
other journals and anthologies.
In
Gate Mueller transforms simple experience into exquisite, almost surrealist detail. She writes about gardening, eating, and treasuring food--which was scarce during her childhood. Her extraordinary relationship with plants allows her to render gardening and mushroom collecting with deep, purified appreciation.
“I
entered poetry with a degree of maturity,” she
says. “The foamy scum had been removed from the top, as when you make jelly. If I had
written poems in my twenties, they would have been far more exuberant and wild,
but also more derivative, and flooded with Victorian, medieval, and Baroque
expressions. I hadn’t figured out who I was yet.”
Mueller’s poetry has been published in numerous literary journals and anthologies, including Looking for Home, Women Writing about Exile (Minneapolis: Milkweed Editions, 1990). After thirty years in the Twin Cities, she continues her work as an interpreter and translator.
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