Daddio: An Iterative Erasure, by MP Vare

Poetry, chapbook, 48 pages, from Bottlecap Features.

        we’ve had certifiably the damndest thrill

This collection was generated from an inappropriate letter the poet received from their dad. The letter’s jovial presentation was further disorienting. Their dad spoke of behaviors the poet saw reflected in their own experience, raising questions of familial inheritance despite decades of estrangement.

Years after the letter was read and put away, its contents lingered causing the poet to frequently ruminate on its meaning. Erasure became a way to engage with their dad’s ham-fisted attempt at connection. In the process a fictional character, Daddio, emerged and wanted to be in conversation, helping the poet to see themself and their dad with greater clarity and tenderness. These playful poems compassionately address loneliness, neurodivergence, and aging.

MP Vare is a disabled transgender parent, intuitive artist, and community-trained writer, including studying creative nonfiction and poetry at Kenyon Review Writers Workshop and as a nonfiction fellow with Abode Press. MP is dazzled by neuroplasticity, and is actively reparenting themself while raising three children, with their spouse and mother-in-law, in an intergenerational household on Lenapehoking in Philadelphia. MP’s writing and art can be found in The Audacity, Opal Age Tribune, Peatsmoke Journal, and Beyond Queer Words. Daddio: An Iterative Erasure is their first chapbook.