Father, Child, Water

Praise for Father, Child, Water

“In Father, Child, Water, Gary Dop uses plain speech and strong, clear imagery to create musical poems full of insight, love, tenderness, and humor too.  This well-wrought, intensely human book will delight people who “don’t get” poetry, as well as those who do.”
—Charles Harper Webb
 
“Gary Dop’s remarkable first collection is the work of a mature poet who can make you laugh and break your heart—sometimes simultaneously.  As wide-ranging as his tone are his subject matter, from theology to pizza delivery; and his style, from richly lyric to hilariously satiric. In the many persona poems, he shows a Dickensian knack for characterization and a stand-up’s sense of timing. With Father, Child, Water, Gary Dop’s become a player.”
—William Trowbridge
 
“In one of many watershed moments in this vibrant collection, poet Gary Dop writes, “The world / will unravel, and I’ll wonder what my hands / search for in the darkness.” Throughout Father, Child, Water, innocence repeatedly faces off with the terrifying yet clarifying bite of experience and knowledge within the serenely green-filled plains of a deceptively Edenic Midwest. Like a spoiler come to destroy the church’s summer potluck, the institutions of fathering (national, religious, familial) are compassionately questioned here, as Dop navigates patriarchal inheritances of violence and war, while defining his own role as a nurturing father—one seeking to protect and empower his own daughters from the brutal codes of obligatory masculinity. This nuanced book balances these resonant poems of fierce terror and love with deft comedy and delightful wit—including monologues in the voices of trickster savants who are not only heartbreaking in their damaged innocence, but hilariously and uncannily shrewd in their cultural critique.”
—Lee Ann Roripaugh