Midwestern literature – Janet Ruth Heller

Article about the Poetry of Award-Winning Writer Lisel Mueller

Post author:Janet Ruth Heller
Post published:May 9, 2025
Post category:Literature Lyric Poetry Midwestern Literature Nature Nature Poetry Poetry scholarly articles scholarly articles about creative writing by Janet Ruth Heller

My article “What Is Midwestern about the Poetry of Lisel Mueller?” appears in Midwestern Miscellany 53.1 (Spring 2025) on pages 1-10. This is a special issue devoted to the work of Lisel Mueller, whose book Alive Together won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1997. The Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature publishes Midwestern Miscellany. Linda Nemec Foster edited this issue. https://ssml.org/ #poetry #midwesternliterature #liselmueller #naturepoetry #societyforthestudyofmidwesternliterature Photo of Lisel Mueller

Janet Ruth Heller on Panel about Midwestern Dramatic Monologues at the Writing the Midwest Conference on June 1, 2015

Post author:Janet Ruth Heller
Post published:April 23, 2015
Post category:Autographing Books Criticism Humanities Janet's Speaking Events Literature Midrash/Exegesis Poetry Poetry Reading

Monday, June 1, 2015—Janet Ruth Heller will be discussing “Dramatic Monologues in Midwestern Poetry,” reading her poetry, and autographing her books from 3:30 to 5 p.m. at Writing the Midwest, the annual conference of the Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature, in the Kellogg Hotel & Conference Center at Michigan State University, 219 S. Harrison Rd. in East Lansing, MI 48823. The conference runs from May 31 to June 2, 2015. (more…)

No more posts to load

I love books by British writers P. D. James, Seamus Heaney, S. T. Coleridge, Jane Austen, William Wordsworth, Robert Browning, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, George Eliot, W. B. Yeats;

American writers Judy Blume, Edna St. Vincent Millay, T. S. Eliot, Maxine Kumin, Jim Daniels, Mong-Lan, Robert Hayden, Langston Hughes, Naomi Shihab Nye, Alberto Ríos, Gail B. Griffin, Jerry Spinelli, Jane Yolen, Kathryn Erskine, Gary D. Schmidt, Adrienne Rich, Judith Minty, Gwendolyn Brooks, Marge Piercy, Grace Paley, Alicia Ostriker, Jaimy Gordon; South African writer Athol Fugard;

Israeli writers Chaim Nachman Bialik, Yehudah Amichai, Rachel Bluwstein, Chaim Guri, S. Y. Agnon; and Hispanic writers Sor Juana, Federico García Lorca, Ruben Darío, Antonio Machado, Jorge Guillén, Pedro Salinas, and Dámaso Alonso.

I also love Japanese haiku, especially those by Matsuo Bashō.

My writing has been influenced by many other authors, including British writers Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Jane Austen, William Wordsworth, Robert Browning, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, George Eliot, W. B. Yeats;

American writers Edna St. Vincent Millay, T. S. Eliot, Maxine Kumin, Adrienne Rich, Judith Minty, Gwendolyn Brooks;

Israeli writers Chaim Nachman Bialik, Yehudah Amichai, Rachel Bluwstein, Chaim Guri, S. Y. Agnon, and Hispanic writers Sor Juana, Federico Garcia Lorca, Ruben Dario, Antonio Machado, Jorge Guillen, Pedro Salinas, and Damaso Alonso.