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Lisel Mueller’s “When I am Asked” · The Daily Poem

• 0:00
  [music]
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to The Daily Poem, a podcast from Goldberry Studios.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Sean Johnson, and today is Monday, October 26th, 2026.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: Today's poem is by Liesl Mueller.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's called When I Am Asked.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: I'll read the poem once, offer a few comments, and read it one more time.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: When I Am Asked When I Am Asked how I began writing poems,
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  SPEAKER_00: I talk about the indifference of nature.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: It was soon after my mother died.
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  SPEAKER_00: A brilliant June day, everything blooming.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: I sat on a grey stone bench in a lovingly planted garden,
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  SPEAKER_00: but the day lilies were as deaf as the ears of drunken sleepers,
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  SPEAKER_00: and the roses curved inward.
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  SPEAKER_00: Nothing was black or broken,
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  SPEAKER_00: and not a leaf fell, and the sun blared endless commercials for summer holidays.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: I sat on a grey stone bench,
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  SPEAKER_00: ringed with the ingenue faces of pink and white impatience,
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  SPEAKER_00: and placed my grief In the mouth of language,
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  SPEAKER_00: the only thing that would grieve with me.
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  SPEAKER_00: This ars poetica or defense or explanation of the art of poetry writing
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  SPEAKER_00: and inspiration is at the same time a kind of anti-poem.
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  SPEAKER_00: It describes the beauty of nature and then offers this subjective disdain for it.
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  SPEAKER_00: Grief in particular is this isolating force that can separate us from even
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  SPEAKER_00: the most sublime natural beauties.
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  SPEAKER_00: I don't know that I've ever read a more withering criticism of nature than
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  SPEAKER_00: the portrayal of the sun as a kind of shill for summer holidays.
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  SPEAKER_00: And it's not that nature is hard or brutal here.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's not red in tooth and claw.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's beautiful and it's delicate, but it's also unfeelingly joyful.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: And the speaker is not ready for, is not in a moment of joy.
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  SPEAKER_00: She requires something more than nature, something supernatural in order to express her grief.
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  SPEAKER_00: And the lovely thing about this poem is that here language and poetry are
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: the supernatural things that are marshaled for that cause.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: Here's the poem one more time.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: When I'm asked how I began writing poems, I talk about the indifference of nature.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: It was soon after my mother died, a brilliant June day, everything blooming.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: I sat on a grey stone bench in a lovingly planted garden,
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: but the daylilies were as deaf as the ears of drunken sleepers and
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: the roses curved inward.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing was black or broken and not a leaf fell and
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: the sun blared endless commercials for summer holidays.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: I sat on the grey stone bench ringed with the ingenue faces of pink
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: and white impatience and placed my grief in the mouth of language,
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: the only thing that would grieve with me.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: This has been The Daily Poem.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: We'll be back tomorrow with a subscriber episode and then here on the main channel on Wednesday.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: In the meantime,
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: find us at dailypoempod.substack.com to listen to past episodes,
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: comment upon, and share today's poem or become a supporter of the show.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: For all of us at Goldberry Studios, I'm Sean Johnson wishing you happy reading.