Wild Flight (Walt McDonald First-Book Series in Poetry)

Soaring across extensive terrain, from the working world of Detroit to American suburbia and pop culture; from the European landscape of World War II to present-day Iraq, Christine Rhein opens her personal world to the world at large. In poems that explore the historical, social, and scientific, as well as the poignant and humorous, Rhein relishes life’s juxtapositions.

“Christine Rhein makes a stunning debut in Wild Flight, distinguishing herself immediately with poems of grace and intelligence. . . . Turning her eye toward science, technology, human relationships, love and war, she never merely describes a thing, but persuades us to a point of view that is subtle and sophisticated, sympathetic, and challenging, funny and almost warm to the touch with each living moment.”―Molly Peacock

“Most writers take several publications and years to find their stride, yet the work of Christine Rhein in her debut anthology of poetry in Wild Flight comes from someone who is already seasoned . . . brilliant . . . on the subjects that matter most.” ― Midwest Book Review

FROM THE BOOK:

Friday night

and we're not perched at some neon-lit Manhattan bar,

not dancing in the ballroom of the San Francisco Ritz

but mixing martinis in our Michigan kitchen,

a pot of potatoes on the stove, our twenty-year-old

Formica piled with newspapers, bills, sons' projects―

bean plants growing well beyond the experiment.

I think of all the variables affecting a marriage . . .

How lucky to sit at this counter, to watch you

lift the frosted glasses from the freezer, your hips

moving in rhythm as you bounce the deco shaker,

its jangle of gin and ice―and that drop of liqueur

you add, tinting the cocktails robin egg blue.

Christine Rhein, formerly a mechanical engineer in Detroit’s automotive industry, lives in Brighton, Michigan. Her poems have appeared in The Gettysburg Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, and The Southern Review and have been selected for Poetry Daily and Best New Poets 2007.