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DADDY
Featured on Quill & Quire's Fall Preview
If you reloop trauma enough, does it make a danceable rhythm? If you get lost in physical sensation enough, does that make you free?
DADDY is a powerful look at patriarchy, intergenerational trauma, and queer desire that seeks an unravelling of systems of control to reclaim vulnerability. At once confessional, playful, and sonically meticulous, Byrne's poems seek conversation with a voice in the mind that won't quiet. Cruel father figures dissolve into leather-clad muscle daddies on popper-scented dancefloors; the pain of the past sows the seeds of a joyful exploration of queer desire.
If you reloop trauma enough, does it make a danceable rhythm? If you get lost in physical sensation enough, does that make you free?
DADDY is a powerful look at patriarchy, intergenerational trauma, and queer desire that seeks an unravelling of systems of control to reclaim vulnerability. At once confessional, playful, and sonically meticulous, Byrne's poems seek conversation with a voice in the mind that won't quiet. Cruel father figures dissolve into leather-clad muscle daddies on popper-scented dancefloors; the pain of the past sows the seeds of a joyful exploration of queer desire.
128 pages, Paperback
Published October 15, 2024
About the author
Jake Byrne
3 books4 followersJake Byrne is a poet and writer based in Toronto, Canada. Their work has been published in journals and anthologies in North America. Their poem “Parallel Volumes” won CV2’s Foster Poetry Prize for 2019, and their first two books of poetry are forthcoming in 2023 with Wolsak & Wynn and in 2024 with Brick Books, respectively.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
October 24, 2024
Wow, this is an excellent collection of poetry!
DADDY by Jake Byrne explores parental/intergenerational trauma, mental illness, and kink. I really like the dichotomy in interchanging the word DADDY to mean “father” in some contexts, but “dom” (as in BDSM) in others. The clever wordplay throughout the collection kept me on my toes.
As someone with bipolar disorder II (who has experienced psychosis and mania), I found the poems about Byrne’s own experiences with mania enlightening and relatable. There are many poetry collections out there now about mental illness that brush on acute depression and the struggle to leave the house/get out of bed/etc, but “uglier” symptoms of mental health diagnoses are seldom discussed. It is very refreshing to see representation of more severe mental illness in DADDY. The importance of honest representation is something I, along with other readers of marginalized identities, know firsthand. It’s one reason why books can be so powerful.
Overall, DADDY kept me engaged throughout the entire collection and left me eager to read more of Byrne’s work. This book of poetry is an easy five stars. 💫
Thank you to Brick Books for my copy!
DADDY by Jake Byrne explores parental/intergenerational trauma, mental illness, and kink. I really like the dichotomy in interchanging the word DADDY to mean “father” in some contexts, but “dom” (as in BDSM) in others. The clever wordplay throughout the collection kept me on my toes.
As someone with bipolar disorder II (who has experienced psychosis and mania), I found the poems about Byrne’s own experiences with mania enlightening and relatable. There are many poetry collections out there now about mental illness that brush on acute depression and the struggle to leave the house/get out of bed/etc, but “uglier” symptoms of mental health diagnoses are seldom discussed. It is very refreshing to see representation of more severe mental illness in DADDY. The importance of honest representation is something I, along with other readers of marginalized identities, know firsthand. It’s one reason why books can be so powerful.
Overall, DADDY kept me engaged throughout the entire collection and left me eager to read more of Byrne’s work. This book of poetry is an easy five stars. 💫
Thank you to Brick Books for my copy!
October 13, 2025
In the titular poem Daddy, Jake Byrne writes
"This is a list poem, I suppose"
, flagging early on an impulse to catalog fissures of the self. These poems seem autobiographical by way of therapy or self-talk, with Byrne enumerating anecdotes within queer tropes: parental (largely paternal) issues, how those eff up a man's sense of self, assault and drugs and how those also eff up a man’s sense of self, the body as a receptacle, the dissolution of the self as a proxy to fulfillment, and the various ways these complications transform to kink and fetish.
It is quite refreshing to see queer kink discussed with such directness as Byrne’s, as there seems to be a general consensus against it, both subject and verbiage, even within the queer (male) poetic tradition. Sex is often alluded to, but hardly documented, lest it be seen as vulgar and rubbish. The way Byrne seems to grapple with the erotic is to lean into disclosure as a creative act, to stack sexual and traumatic confessions, and to build a world heightened or troubled by these encounters. The tradeoff here is that the vigor of the poems comes mostly secondhand, derived from their erotic origins, though I don’t see this as being a concern at all to Byrne.
In fact, Byrne seems to be irreverent to the supposed power of poetry. He pokes fun at it most notably in Long Poem II, one of the longer works and the most self-referential in the collection. In it, Byrne calls out the title of the poem and the poem multiple times, frequent enough to ensure that the reader does not forget it. In the same poem, he also includes a potential rewrite of a few lines using the "Poet Voice”, an extremely literary and verbose oracle. These impulses embedded within the poems almost turn them into artifice, more as footnotes to erotic acts or as loose containers of his troubled past, rather than sites of reconstruction and atonement. For Byrne, retribution is not a thing within poems if it’s not a thing in real life.
It is quite refreshing to see queer kink discussed with such directness as Byrne’s, as there seems to be a general consensus against it, both subject and verbiage, even within the queer (male) poetic tradition. Sex is often alluded to, but hardly documented, lest it be seen as vulgar and rubbish. The way Byrne seems to grapple with the erotic is to lean into disclosure as a creative act, to stack sexual and traumatic confessions, and to build a world heightened or troubled by these encounters. The tradeoff here is that the vigor of the poems comes mostly secondhand, derived from their erotic origins, though I don’t see this as being a concern at all to Byrne.
In fact, Byrne seems to be irreverent to the supposed power of poetry. He pokes fun at it most notably in Long Poem II, one of the longer works and the most self-referential in the collection. In it, Byrne calls out the title of the poem and the poem multiple times, frequent enough to ensure that the reader does not forget it. In the same poem, he also includes a potential rewrite of a few lines using the "Poet Voice”, an extremely literary and verbose oracle. These impulses embedded within the poems almost turn them into artifice, more as footnotes to erotic acts or as loose containers of his troubled past, rather than sites of reconstruction and atonement. For Byrne, retribution is not a thing within poems if it’s not a thing in real life.
September 25, 2024
ARC given by Edelweiss+ for Honest Review
A playful and intimate look at toxic masculinity and patriarchy through a queer lens. The writing is stunning and raw, using well formed metaphor to recount familial trauma and heartache.
Filled with fresh prose and pop culture references that any millennial whose been online will enjoy. Overall, an incredibly well written and creative collection of poetry.
My favorite poems are: "PARALLEL VOLUMES", " DADDY", "polyamorous love song", "lacy lesions forming", and "LONG POEM II."
A playful and intimate look at toxic masculinity and patriarchy through a queer lens. The writing is stunning and raw, using well formed metaphor to recount familial trauma and heartache.
Filled with fresh prose and pop culture references that any millennial whose been online will enjoy. Overall, an incredibly well written and creative collection of poetry.
My favorite poems are: "PARALLEL VOLUMES", " DADDY", "polyamorous love song", "lacy lesions forming", and "LONG POEM II."
January 3, 2025
What I didn’t expect
When I moved through my life
Is that when mania came for me
I would fall into it willingly
Like I could fall into
A hadal zone or waterbed,
That in the depths of my fall
I’d dissolve there, just
Like I was rock salt poured into
A pot of boiling water, or like
The Joker falling backwards
Into a vat of acid.
— “Madness”
When I moved through my life
Is that when mania came for me
I would fall into it willingly
Like I could fall into
A hadal zone or waterbed,
That in the depths of my fall
I’d dissolve there, just
Like I was rock salt poured into
A pot of boiling water, or like
The Joker falling backwards
Into a vat of acid.
— “Madness”
April 4, 2026
I’ve never really read poetry but was recently inspired and sought out some queer work. Not being an expert (or even a novice) I have little of substance to say on the merit of the poems but I will say they often gave me pause and thrilled me with their brash transparency. There is a familiarity here for queer men found in the words.
December 23, 2025
Great poetry collection: Finished in 1-2 sittings, and it genuinely was an experience. An entire journey is painted in these words, and I admire the author's ability to tackle extremely heavy themes with such grace.
March 22, 2026
an uneven read for me but what I enjoyed, I loved.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews