HALIFAX – Acclaimed African-Nova Scotian poet Maxine Tynes had died.
She passed away Monday, in Halifax, at the age of 62.
Tynes taught English at Auburn Drive and Cole Harbour High
schools, but also developed a successful career as a writer and published her
first book, Borrowed Beauty, in 1987.
Her other works include The Door of My Heart (1993), Woman
talking Woman(1990) and Save the World for Me (1993) – an
insightful book of poetry for young adults and adolescents
She was a seventh-generation Nova Scotian, born in Dartmouth
in 1949, with a family
heritage dating back to the time of Black Loyalists.
She used her background as inspiration in writing about the
experiences of African Nova Scotians and the discrimination faced by residents
of Africville, as well as composing works about gender relations, family,
politics and life for people with disabilities.
“Like all writers and all artists, there’s something in
me that drives this thing to be done – this writing, this poetry, this literary
voice– that is subconscious,” Tynes said of her work in a 1993 interview.
“But there is also a conscious drive and that is the
sense of self as black woman in the world who wants to speak this womanist,
feminist vision and philosophy and dialectic, who needs to speak from black
culture, to look behind me and where I find blank trails to turn to myself to
create some, to lay down a path of my own with the story and the poem,”
she said
African Nova Scotian Affairs Minister John MacDonnell says
Tynes legacy will serve as an inspiration.
“Maxine Tynes used her powerful words to tell stories
of the triumph of hope over oppression and taught us that we could transcend
difference to celebrate the beauty of the human spirit,” MacDonnell said
Wednesday.
Tynes was recognized for her work locally and nationally.
She was the first African Canadian to sit on the Board of
Governors at Dalhousie University, her alma mater and she also received an
Honorary Doctorate of Human Letters from Mount Saint Vincent University, in
1992.
The following year Governor General Ramon Hnatyshyn
awarded Tynes the Canada 125 medal in recognition of her contribution to
Canada, compatriots and community.
She also has room named after her at the Dartmouth Public
Library at Alderney Landing.
In an email to the Halifax Chronicle Herald, fellow Nova
Scotia poet George Elliot Clarke said Tynes brought “passion and life to
the concerns and persons that she wrote about.”
“She took all of her identities –
woman, Black, Native/Aboriginal, differently-abled, and made undying poetry out
of them all,” Elliot wrote. “She is one of the few poets who, when
she was able to perform publicly, would electrify everyone and dignify formerly
voiceless communities.”
Tynes was predeceased by her parents, Ada (Maxwell) and
Joseph Tynes, and is survived by six sisters and four brothers.
Her obituary says she is also survived by a lifelong
dedicated friend, Wayne Thompson.
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