The Door of My Heart

Lisa A. Dickson is a freelance writer living in Guelph.

In this collection of poems and stories, Maxine Tynes travels across the
landscapes of Newfoundland and the Caribbean, along the often precarious
paths of politics, racism, and activism, and through the body, with all
its pleasures and pains. The poems are often angry or sad, but beneath
this tone runs a current of joy and delight in the possibilities of
human community and caring. The biting criticism of political hypocrisy
in “We Demand the Right to Pee” is balanced by a fleeting connection
with “two male and fleeting strangers / small heroic men” in “Fear
of Falling: Releasing Thanks to Two Hearty Pairs.” In “Talk That
Talk,” Kari Taylor’s struggle with racism in the workplace becomes a
story about the sharing and support in the black women’s community
that give her the strength to “talk Black and loud and strong and
public.”

In poems like “Post Polio” and “Handprints on the Wall,” Tynes
describes the pains and uncertainties faced by the physically
challenged. Yet, even here, the double current runs, and the poetic
voice is a tender one, as in “Sugarcane”: “I look and there you
are / lying at my feet, my golden Lab. / My cane.” It is in the love
poems that Tynes is at her best. Here the joys of the body in all its
forms and conditions overflow. In “Desmond Morris Explained the
Kiss,” the sea rhythm “invites and drowns in the sea of passion,”
as it does in “And Again,” with the “ebb and riptide” of the
first touch.

The language is straightforward and conversational throughout, but the
simplicity of the lines should not be mistaken for the simplistic, for
beneath the surface of the poems are emotional and political depths. The
Door of My Heart is a collection that invites you in.