EBOOK
About
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.
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.