Wild Flight

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. 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 minnows 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.