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Engineer-turned-poet Rhein mixes programming with poetry

Christine Rhein is a former auto engineer. She lives in Brighton, Michigan.
Christine Rhein is a former auto engineer. She lives in Brighton, Michigan.
Christine Rhein is a former auto engineer. She lives in Brighton, Michigan.
Christine Rhein is a former auto engineer. She lives in Brighton, Michigan.

ChristineRheinis the author ofWild Flight (Texas Tech University Press), a winner of the Walt McDonald Poetry Prize. Her poems have appeared in many literary journals, includingMichigan Quarterly Review,and have been featured atPoetry DailyandThe Writer’s Almanac

"I wrote this poem in response to the heroic work accomplished at Gene Codes Corporation, in Ann Arbor, following 9/11," she says. "The poem, a weaving of programming language with poetic language, explores the event’s impact on the software developers and beyond."

Rhein cites a quote from the Detroit Free Press (September 9, 2004) to highlight to importance of this work. "It was the complex software created at Michigan’s Gene Codes Corporation that made most of the 1,571 successful World Trade Center victim identifications possible.… This week the Gene Codes staff is working on Version 137 of the software called Mass-Fatality Identification System, M-FISys, pronouncedemphasis." 

Christine Rhein reading her poem "In Code."

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Mercedes Mejia produces interviews for All Things Considered, including the music segment Songs from Studio East. She also produces content for Stateside. Mercedes relocated to Michigan from New Mexico, where she earned her BA in Latin American Studies and Journalism. She began in public radio as a reporter atKUNMin Albuquerque. She brings extensive video production skills from her work at Univision and Edit House Production.