I really enjoyed this book even though it wasn't necessarily what I would have picked up. I think it has a lot of recommendation potential within the library.

This book just wasn’t for me. I couldn’t get into it because I struggled with the writing style. After reading reviews I see I am in the minority so please don’t let me thoughts affect your decision to read this or not.

This book is not for the faint of stomach or heart. Filled with the ache of the loss of a parent and some descriptions that definitely made me queasy this is not a read for everyone. It has a very specific audience. It has taken me forever to read it, not because it was bad but because the loss and the imagery were so graphic I had to constantly take breaks as to not fall down a deep hole.

A good, good poetry collection detailing the author's grief after the death of their abusive, alcoholic father. I loved pretty much every poem in here, and they were all exquisite and well thought out. There is a discussion on mourning (its ambiguity and whether some people deserve it, even though they affect one anyway), gender, emotional abuse, even matters of ecocriticism, considering the father's love of hunting. So well-written and heart-wrecking.

---
when i spell grief, i can never remember if the i or e comes first,
so i spend each day autocorrecting my greif,
my grief, greif, grief, greif,
until i can finally figure out what the fuck it is i'm trying to say.
---

some favourites: I Write My Dead Name in My Father's Obituary, The First Birthday He is Not Alive, Sometimes I Want to Hurt People Who Have Hurt Me, Dead Dad Jokes.

DEAD DAD JOKES by Ollie Schminkey is a collection of poems that range from compellingly lyrical to crudely explicit, showcasing the vast range of emotions one goes through as the caregiver of a dying person. Schminkey manages to expertly capture the experience of being an emotionally neglected child who must later step up to care for their dying, absentee parent through highly descriptive and evocative pieces.

Oh man, this was a difficult read. It's just as raw and gut-wrenching as everyone says. The writing itself isn't terribly complex, but it hits the mark beautifully. The impact is just as strong. I strongly recommend this book to everyone, but especially those dealing with the grief of lost opportunities. Read with caution and care, though, these of rough topics.

Woof! This was tough. I'm not really a poetry person in general and the content made it even harder. That said, clearly a huge achievement for the author.

This book was not for me, I kept trying to make it for me and it just wasn’t. I hope to read more though and maybe find something that fits more into what I enjoy

Such raw and gorgeous poems. The grief is visceral, so apparent in every image, each line. So many of these poems feel so familiar, and yet they are often surprising as well. Often painful to read, but worth every single minute.

Dead Dad Jokes by Ollie Schminkey is a Button Poetry published collection dealing with the death of her father from a terminal illness. Though the main themes of this book are queerness and grief, the trauma and writing are spun on its head because the bond between Ollie and their father was never particularly strong or even healthy and accepting. Consequently, the poetry collection examines and explores how death and pain altered the author’s relationship with their father.
This powerful, strong and unnerving collection has really stuck with me even weeks after finishing it. As many of you may know, I’m not the biggest fan of poetry because I never feel moved by or taken with them – there’s no connection or power between the words and me. While I may be able to acknowledge the brilliant writing, the effects are rarely as prominent as when I read a full-length novel. However, Ollie Schminkey has proved me wrong. The continuous themes of family, loss, grief, trauma and queerness allowed me to become deeply attached to the ongoing ‘plot’, so to speak, and I was so absorbed in the content and the style of writing.
The elegies throughout are written in free verse, with no capital letters, making the poems feel very personal, as if the thoughts had just come to the author, not rehearsed or edited. I rather enjoyed this style because again, it reinforced the attachment I had to the story because of this personal effect the style had.
Additionally, there was this constant comparison throughout of human death and animal death, with a lot of hunting analogy, referenced in the book cover. I found it brilliant how Schminkey managed to capture the experiences they had with their dad by using animals, hunting and the gore that is often present and link it to their experiences of loss and how to deal with it.
Following on from this, as the author is non-binary and transgender, the experience of “killing” their past, with the use of terms like “dead name” is another avenue the poet explored into the theme of death. In dealing with someone who was terminally ill, the identity of the author in effect become suppressed because of the needs of the dying dad. The experiences they talk about in regards to having to care for their father, and losing pieces of themselves and not being to implement activities that the author wanted to do was extremely moving and heart-breaking to read. The raw and tangible feelings expressed in the poems is something I haven’t in any poetry collection and was beyond impressed.
My favourites include Yet Another Poem About Roadkill and I Write My Dead Name in My Father’s Obituary which I think beautifully encapsulates both loss but also identity expression and dealing with two important topics at the same time in one’s life.
Overall, I would 100% recommend this to everyone. The writing isn’t complex but the topic are sometimes hard to grapple with, alongside its graphic content. Take caution reading the book but it is a really beautiful and raw collection.

Stunning and raw poems about grief, gender identity, and missing someone who never knew you the way you needed them to.

This collection of poems is about so much more then one young adult's grief as they try to process the loss of their father. It’s about understanding life as you come of age, learning how to express your boundaries, and acceptance of oneself When those who love you most don't approve of who you are at your core.

Each poem is a meaningful step taken towards healing for Ollie. Be it towards affirming gender, or lack thereof, owning their queer identity, working to understand a complex childhood relationship with an alcoholic, often neglectful, and seemingly abusive father, the poet is raw and genuine in their art.

Readers will connect on so many levels here, and seeing Ollie practice such grace through chaos, selflessness to one who has caused so much harm in their life, and humor in the face of tragedy will provide a shining example for others to emulate.

I admire the vulnerability within these pages, and I will certainly revisit this compilation again. My favorite poem was "Reese's Penis Butter Cups."

In exchange for an honest review, I received an advanced copy courtesy of Button Poetry and NetGalley.com.

"Cremation doesn't actually produce ash.
instead, the skin and muscle burn away entirely,
leaving just the weakened skeleton,
which is thrown into a blender,
crushed, and returned to you.
my father becomes the margarita i want to order at the bar."

Dead Dad Jokes was not a poetry book that I felt like I would be able to connect to when I had started reading it, but I was pleasantly surprised. The poems inside were so raw and hit all of the emotions that I had forgotten were there when it comes to experiencing and dealing with death.
I loved the format of the poems and how they were typically different from the modern poetry seen in most books. The poems are intricate and detailed and the more you read a poem the more meanings that you find within the lines. I cried and I laughed and I fell in love with the way that this made me feel.
This wasn't a full five-star read for me since there were a lot more poems that I didn't connect to and that had me feeling very distant and uninterested. Normally a few poems I can handle but it felt like more than I would have liked. I will admit this is definitely a personal preference and just the difference between the events that have happened to me compared to the author. The rest of the poems were amazing and for the most part, I was intrigued and captivated most of the time.
I highly recommend this if you are grieving and know that it isn't all dark and grim as it may seem to be.

As a queer who nursed a cancer ridden father as a child, reading this over fathers day might not have been the best shout.

It might have been the best decision possibly because it was like someone holding my hand through it all.

Thank you so much to NetGalley, Ollie Schminkey, and Button Poetry for the opportunity to read Dead Dad Jokes in exchange for an honest review...



As a person who has not only lost her father, but more recently lost her mother as well;
these words we extremely helpful and painful.

The Way Ollie writes about the passing of their father and watching their father die before his eyes is really moving.
I have felt the emotions in this book, I have surpressed a lot of them as well.
I would honestly recommend this book to any of my friends if they were too dealing with the pain of losing a parent.
Everyone dies differently, and everyone grieves different as well but this book captures Ollies grief and the death of their dad beautifully.
Thank you for this masterpiece of a poetry book, As a parentless child this has been a great read not ony for my mind but my heart and soul as well.

This book took me ten miles on my stationary bike and made for wonderful resistance training. I was only planning to do five but this felt so incredibly healing after a year of so much grief.

Like poet Ollie Schminkey, I'm in the dead dad club. I actually read Dead Dad Jokes primarily during Father's Day weekend as a sort of homage to my dead dad. Losing a parent in your twenties can be such an alienating experience because most people your age have never gone through that, and they have no idea how to act about it. Sometimes I need to tell dead dad jokes and that makes people deeeeeply uncomfortable. I didn't realise how badly I wanted other people my age to participate in this with until very recently when I read Tyler Feder's graphic memoir Dancing at the Pity Party. Because of my own loss and my complicated feelings about it, just seeing the title "Dead Dad Jokes" had me sold.

Like the author, I am queer, I had a complicated relationship with my father, and my father died of an illness in hospice (although the author's father took far longer to die than my own did). These similarities were really striking for me, and it was easy to relate them to my own experiences. It was so striking to read because a number of the poems felt like they came from somewhere inside me rather than something a separate human wrote. Reading the experiences that differed from my own was almost jarring, like it interrupted a moment inside me, although this is absolutely not the fault of the book or author. It comforted me to read something so raw and that I related to so deeply.

Dead Dad Jokes was an excellent poetry collection that served as a much-needed catharsis for me. I would highly recommend this collection to fellow lovers of poetry and fellow members of the dead dad club.

As someone who writes poetry, I found the visuals and imagery from the text in this book some of the best I've seen. I found the poetry to be captivating, emotional, and funny at times. Thank you for the e-arc!

This is a solid poetry collection focused on the death of an abusive, alcoholic father and how his death impacts the author. I liked quite a few of the poems and they are certainly very open and honest. Aside from the questions posed about death, guilt and family, there is also some poems that touch on the subject of gender identity and sexual orientation.

There were two things that I didn't quite like about this collection:
1. It felt very narrow in focus. I realize that this was done intentionally, but to me it made the poems somewhat repetitive. Like everything could have been said just as honestly and bluntly and artistically in three or four poems instead of a collection. It watered down the emotional resonance and the impact the poems had. I understand that this is very subjective and I am sure others may have enjoyed the poems individually and loved that there were so many about the same topic. But it wasn't for me.
2. All of the poems use very graphic language or descriptions in a way that felt like a device to make the reader feel shocked at the boldness of the art in this collection. But after a while this became a little too much for me, lacked a certain nuance or balance that would have really gotten to me. The way the poems were written felt like they were trying to be extra bold and shocking to seem more interesting or artistic. Sometimes I thought they would have profited from some contrast, i.e. more beauty or fragility to make the terrible things stand out more. Again, this is just my personal opinion of course, I am sure many readers will find value in this very bold way of writing.

Overall a solid collection of poems, I would recommend you give it a try, even if it wasn't for me.

First of all, I would like to thank NetGalley and the publishers for providing me with an eARC of Dead Dad Jokes by Ollie Schminkey.

Dead Dad Jokes is a collection of poetry dealing with family, loss and trauma.

I thouroughly enjoyed this collection of work more so than I would have if I hadn’t connected so deeply to some of the themes I believe.

I appreciate the way in which it is written and I look forward to reading any of Ollie’s future work!