Immigrating to the United States at the age of five from Paris, France, Christine Schonewald found herself surrounded by people speaking the melodic sounds of English, Danish, Cantonese, Italian, Spanish, Russian, and other languages. Growing up in San Francisco, California, Schonewald's verse, spawned from the mix of languages, beginning with childhood's imagination. The infusion of rhythms, word sounds, and music into her emotions would soon generate poetry. Other factors shaped her life and her writing, increasing her curiosity, and flexibility. All through school, a slow reader and poor writer, Schonewald would later find that both dyslexic and epileptic setbacks trained her to explore alternative means for both inquiry and problem solving. They had underscored her love of sound and rhythms. Later, other weights also affected Schonewald's perceptions, such as her five-year-old daughter's 25+ year bout with Lyme disease. Poetry was her private lifeline. While partly voicing feelings of inadequacy, anger, and hopelessness, her poetry most importantly nourished her life's vital humor and romance. Life continues to make her curiosity about culture, history and nature insatiable.
Sometimes communication requires descriptions of despair to underscore the immeasurable value of options, opportunities and hope that life offers. One Stranger's Songs provides prevailing themes across time as Schonewald shares her stranger's human voyage through some of life's good, hard, and celestial times, all of which are inseparable. Enjoy forty-plus years' work in response to people, travel, explorations, and discoveries and see if you witness yourself in any of these delightful responses.