Maureen Hynes

Maureen Hynes is a Canadian poet.

Hynes’s debut collection of poetry, Rough Skin (Wolsak and Wynn), won the League of Canadian Poets' Gerald Lampert Award for best first book of poetry by a Canadian in 1996. Her second collection, Harm’s Way, was published by Brick Books in 2001, and her third, Marrow, Willow, was published in 2011 by Pedlar Press in Toronto. In 2015, Pedlar Press published Hynes's The Poison Colour. For The Poison Colour, she was a 2016 finalist for the League of Canadian Poets' Pat Lowther Award and Raymond Souster Award.

Hynes is also a winner of the Petra Kenney Poetry Prize (London, England). Her poems have been shortlisted for the CBC Literary Awards. Her fiction and poetry have appeared in over twenty anthologies, including Braid and Shreve's In Fine Form, 2nd Edition: A Contemporary Look at Canadian Form Poetry. Hynes's poem, "Wing On," was selected by Helen Humphreys for Best Canadian Poetry in English 2016, and "The Last Cigarette" was chosen as one of 50 poems for Best Canadian Poetry in English 2010, edited by Lorna Crozier). Her poem "The Poison Colour" was longlisted for the same collection in 2011, edited by Priscila Uppal. Hynes's work has appeared in notable Canadian literary journals including The Malahat, The Fiddlehead, Arc, The Literary Review of Canada, Descant, Contemporary Verse 2, Prairie Fire, The Antigonish Review and Queen's Quarterly.

She has edited and co-edited several collections of poetry and is poetry editor for Our Times, Canada's national labour magazine.

Hynes, an out lesbian, served on the jury for the 2008 Dayne Ogilvie Prize, a literary award for emerging LGBT writers in Canada, selecting Zoe Whittall as that year's winner.

She has also served on juries for the League of Canadian Poets' Pat Lowther Memorial Prize, the Bannister Poetry Award, Canadian University Press Student Journalism Awards and the Dan Sullivan Poetry Award. Hynes was a member of the Toronto Arts Council's Literary Committee from 2008 to 2011.

In addition to her poetry collections, Hynes published a memoir, Letters from China (Women's Press, 1981) about her experiences as a teacher trainer in China just after the end of the Cultural Revolution.

She taught ESL and published ESL textbooks, coordinated the School of Labour at George Brown College in Toronto, and was the college's multicultural/anti-racism coordinator. She teaches personal narrative in creative writing at the University of Toronto's School of Continuing Studies.

She has also been an active member of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union, a board member of Mayworks, Toronto's annual Festival of Working People and the Arts, and of the Centre for Study of Education and Work (CSEW) at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education.

Works

• Letters from China, Women's Press, Toronto, Ont. 1981 (ISBN 0-88961-071-1)
• Rough Skin, Wolsak and Wynn, Toronto, Ont. 1995 (ISBN 978-0-919897-45-8)
• we make the air: Poems by Lina Chartrand, co-edited with Ingrid MacDonald, TLC Press, Toronto, Ont. 1999 (ISBN 978-0-9684557-0-8)
• Harm's Way, Brick Books, London, Ont. 2001 (ISBN 978-1-897141-39-7)
• Marrow, Willow, Pedlar Press, Toronto, Ont. 2011 (ISBN 978-1-897141-39-7)
• Cry Uncle, Aeolus Books, Toronto, Ont. 2013. Co-edited with Allan Briesmaster and Sue Chenette, (ISBN 978-0-9878154-7-7)
• The Poison Colour, Pedlar Press, St John's, NL 2015 (ISBN 978-1-897141-71-7)

Anthologies (selected)

• Frictions II: Stories by Women, ed. Rhea Tregebov, Toronto: Second Story Press, 1993
• A Room at the Heart of Things, ed. Elisabeth Harvor, Montreal: Vehicle Press, 1999.
• Riprap: The Banff Centre’s 25th Anniversary Collection, Volume 2, ed. E. Alford, D. McKay, R. Tregebov, R. Wyatt, Banff Centre Press, 1999.
• Why I Sing the Blues,eds. Brad Cran and Jan Zwicky, Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2001.
• Bent on Writing: Contemporary Queer Tales, ed. Elizabeth Ruth, Toronto: Canadian Scholar’s Press/Women’s Press, 2002.
• In Fine Form: The Canadian Book of Form Poetry, eds. Kate Braid and Sandy Shreve, Vancouver BC: Polestar Press, 2005.
• A Verse Map of Vancouver, Ed. George McWhirter, photographs by Derek Von Essen. Vancouver: Anvil Press. 2009.
• The Bright Well, Ed. Fiona Lam, Vancouver Island, B.C.: Leaf Press, 2011.
• The Wild Weathers: A Gathering of Love Poems, Ed. Ursula Vaira, Vancouver Island, B.C.: Leaf Press, 2012.
• Untying the Apron: Daughters Remember Mothers of the 1950’s, Ed. Lorri Neilsen Glenn. Toronto: Guernica Press, 2013.
• Poems from Planet Earth, Ed. Yvonne Blomer. Vancouver Island, B.C.: Leaf Press, 2013.
• I Found it at the Movies: An Anthology of Film Poets, ed. Ruth Roach Pierson, Toronto: Guernica Editions, 2014