B O O K S

Wild Flight

By Christine Rhein
Introduction by Robert A. Fink

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.

“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 an 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

from “Tuning”

I try to tune out the boom! boom! boom!
from the shooting range two miles from my house,
and think of the people who live next door

to the targets, or in the din of London and Berlin
where nightingales now sing fourteen decibels louder
to be heard by mates, quintupling the pressure

in their lungs . . . . . . Imagine
if we could hear bread rising, dew forming, the budding
of raspberries, the tear of a cocoon, a minnow’s pulse,

our own cells growing, dying. When my husband
kisses my ear, I love the swoosh, the quiver, his breath
sand driven by wind, my whispered name.