Randolph College MFA Director
Poet, Playwright, & Performer
Writing
Poems
Plays
Stories
Films
"The poems in Father, Child, Water by Gary Dop are funny, wicked, and poignant. Dop’s poetic gaze is wide-ranging and piercing. The poems about his father engage with the violence embedded in American masculinity and the character-driven poems are empathic and quirky. A highly enjoyable and memorable book."
-- Eduardo C. Corral for POETRY MAGAZINE
Have You Heard the One About
the madwoman who gave birth without screaming
till she held her child? She wailed:
He’s going to die. He’s going to die. And he did
eighty-four years later in a fishing village where he retired
with his wife and their latest Shih Tzu, Dreamy.
I know there’s no satisfying punch line, no
little joke about mom’s prediction, and nothing
to barb with the sanity of a mother’s pain—
nothing, that is, till you examine
your satisfied sigh when you heard that the baby
lived. Distracted, you pranced past the little truth—
every joke’s companion—the madwoman
was right: The boy died. The crazy mother
mourned the death to come, the death
of the old man in the infant, the death we forget
in favor of what we call sanity, that flimsy gift
of some other madwoman who birthed
the rest of us and the jokes we bear.
Evander Holyfield's Left Ear Remembers June 28, 1997
How to Pretend You've Read
Moby Dick
Pothead Pete's English Presentation
People Watching
To The Ice Cream Man
I got no green money for your red,
white, and blue bomb pops. You say
they're delectable, and delectable,
I think, means a thousand dime-cicles
plus sugar sparkles. I tasted it
in my head. You said only
really hard, only one dollar,
like dollars is dimes and everybody
can get delectables any time, but
Mom says since Dad got his slip
from Ford we won't have steaks
on Sundays or probably
new backpacks or those shoes
that light up on the back part
when you run. Dad likes
fudge pops and beer. I can run
like lightning, faster than your truck
and your bell. If I grow up
I'll drive a fast car with an ice cream
freezer in the back seat. Nobody
likes your bell.
CONTACT Gary Dop
Please use this form to say hello or yo or hey. It's a lonely world, and sometimes it's nice to reach out--it is almost always lovely to receive a note!
"The Girl With No Nightmares"
a poem
The Switch Key
written & directed
by Gary Dop
(in post production)
