Wild Flight Poems

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.

Winner of the Walt McDonald First-Book Competition 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 the current war in 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

"Wild Flight introduces us to an important new voice... This is a poetry of the highest imagination, and the most energetic intelligence, written by a poet with a keen eye and a large spirit. Her hard look at this life is made beautiful by her art." —Laura Kasischke

"One of the mysteries of human life is that it is never and individual journey, a truth that Christine Rhein discovers over and over in this remarkable first book. In Wild Flight, she walks us artfully through the histories she comes from and those she is witness to in our time... The personal is political in these large-minded poems, and the political personal." —Roger Mitchell

"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 but challenging, funny and almost warm to the touch with each living moment." —Molly Peacock