Lines in Opposition discovers truths without abstractions. Images and details endorse the hope that marriages might secure Love within families-fathers, mothers, children, friends. Maureen Sherbondy recreates a Past that disappears and reappears with every syllable like a dozer leveling walls inside a house we are invited to enter: one big room shudders with longings for humanity to harmonize elegiac songs of togetherness. Shelby Stephenson, poet laureate of North Carolina (2015-2018) ; author of Slavery and Freedom on Paul's Hill Lines in Opposition is an apt title for Maureen Sherbondy's collection of observant, reflective, and sometimes acerbic poems. The lines are forthright and the strategic dissonance makes a music suggestive of klezmer: stimulating, energetic, no-holds-barred fun-serious fun. These pieces woke me up. Some will keep me awake. Fred Chappell, Poet Laureate of North Carolina (1997-2002)