Remembering Kent Mueller

Kent Mueller

It might take Milwaukee a 21st century minute to realize we lost a legend on the morning of October 28, when poet, art dealer, collector, local historian and model train afficionado Kent Mueller passed away peacefully, holding his wife Linda’s hand in hospice after battling lung cancer.

With the scarce pairing of humility and generosity, Kent Mueller made lasting, formative marks on those around him, eternal marks in my case. I met Kent in September 1986, in the Bern Boys building above Kodric’s on National Avenue, which was haunted then, and will remain so now that Kent can stroll its smoky confines again in whatever’s left of heaven.

That autumn I’d responded to a UWM Post classified ad by Goal Zero, a wily, scruffy poetry group seeking new blood. In Kent I found a me