Just choose one direction to look in / it doesn’t have to be down

Carrying the themes of two very serious stances – rage and hope – Maureen Hynes’s poems transform them into daily experiences and aspirations, even determination.

Who are the guests who visit the poems in Rag and Hop? Readers will encounter a juggler, a siren choir, a mysterious woman’s profile in snow, several tiny insects, and a few enormous animals. Babies also make an appearance, as do the god Mercury and the goddess of hinges, Cardea, who knows when to open what is closed and close what is open.

Rag and Hop uncovers the risks and realities below the surfaces of our lives. From sonnets to glosas to palinodes, the poems chart the loops of sadness and joy in our days, hold out commonplace ceremonies that are markers of time, and, through it all, probe the dire developments and inequities in our world.