Bipolar Extremes: The Poems
Bipolar Extremes: The Poems is a sequel to Dr. Marie Kiely Tynan’s book published by Dorrance in 2019, Bipolar Extremes: A Memoir. The memoir deals with her depths of depression and mood swings not diagnosed as bipolar disorder until 2003, when she had just turned fifty-three. Her poetry book is based on poems she wrote mostly in 2003, rediscovered in January of 2025, in an old notebook stored in a neglected closet of boxes. Dr. Tynan’s poems reveal how she experienced her bipolar despair, especially in 2003, when she was prescribed heavy doses of medication that helped somewhat, but more significantly, exacerbated her anxious moments.
But some poems express affirmation and redemption. She wants her readers, especially those afflicted with bipolar disorder, to gain some comfort in realizing that they can live through depressive spells and come back to a healthy, productive life if they believe in themselves and rely on medical professionals, family, friends, work associates, and others with empathy and sympathy to talk and help them through the dark times.
In the Epilogue, Dr. Tynan quotes a Wikipedia definition of bipolar disorder and explores an experience, in 1969, of a manic high followed by a manic low in that critical and vulnerable year of her life at age nineteen. She then provides a section of classic British and American poems from the sixteenth to the twenty-first century, that have inspired her through periods of emotional lows and highs. Another section provides Biblical scripture that has sustained her throughout a life of perpetual mood swings. The Selected Bibliography lists both very old and very new books from which Dr. Tynan derived the classic poems. She hopes her audience will read these poems and appreciate both the pain and the pleasure expressed in some of the best literature of all time.
Dr. Marie Kiely Tynan grew up in a small town, Bluefield, West Virginia, and spent most of her adult life in Virginia. She is proud to be both a West Virginian and a Virginian because of her love for the history of both states, the beauty of the mountains, her lineage of prominent Virginians dating back to 1614, and her adoration of her grandfather French who, from his office in Bluefield, WV, directed logistics for the U.S. Fuel Administration to distribute coal over the railways to the U.S. Navy and other war industries up and down the East Coast during World War I. Her grandfather also delivered enormous amounts of coal to the military during World War II.
Dr. Tynan grew up with a close-knit extended family. She feels very fortunate to have two successful grown sons, a talented daughter-in-law, two healthy young granddaughters, two fine brothers, and numerous cousins and their families.
Dr. Tynan worked for NASA thirty-five years, particularly during the Space Shuttle era, and she received exceptional service awards, leadership awards, and performance awards. She was appointed Federal Women’s Program Manager in the mid-1980s at Stennis Space Center, and she served as team lead on some major projects and worked as Computer Security Manager at NASA Headquarters in the early cybersecurity years of 1988-1991. Although she worked primarily at NASA HQ in Washington, DC, she spent five years in the field at Stennis Space Center in Mississippi, where rocket testing was performed during the Apollo era, then main engine testing for the Space Shuttle Program, and now the newest rocket testing planned for use in moon and Mars explorations.
Before her NASA career, Dr. Tynan completed her B.A. in English at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, during the Bear Bryant football days, graduating Phi Beta Kappa in 1971. She received her M.A. in English at the University of North Carolina/Chapel Hill in 1973, and then completed her doctorate in British and American literature at UNC/Chapel Hill in 1979.
Dr. Tynan currently lives in Danville, VA, where she is active in the local Dorothea Henry chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR). She also loves to read and participates in book and cultural clubs, does challenging research on her ancestors, and enjoys listening to classical music, the blues, and classic rock from the 1960s and 70s.
Published: 2026
Page Count: 176