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WINNER OF THE 2025 TRILLIUM BOOK AWARD FOR POETRY
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.
"Emotionally affecting, smart, and propulsive, Jake Byrne's Daddy uses poetry as an act of intimate world building. By synthesizing different modes of writing - dialogic constructions, theatrical forms of address, an essayistic expository voicing, Byrne creates a contemporary mode of writing —one that does that evasive thing: it accommodates the full dimensions of a life."—from the jurors of the 2025 Trillium Book Award for Poetry
"DADDY makes me feel shock and bliss, both at once. It also makes me laugh a lot—but the funny bits actually feel like a mere byproduct of Byrne's incredible understanding of how the world really, truly is."—Ben Ladouceur, author of I Remember Lights and Mad Long Emotion
"I thought I knew desire. I thought I knew raging at the world around, but Jake Byrne shows me the limits of my imagination and fantasy. DADDY is no abstraction. It is instead the material cost of living a radical life."—Khashayar "Kess" Mohammadi, author of Daffod*ls and G: Fricatives
"Providing a tender and moving portrayal of gay intimacy, Jake Byrne’s poetry collection Daddy is a refreshing read. Fans of gay literature and contemporary poetry will appreciate Byrne’s contribution to the genre, while new readers will also find something to connect with. Although deeply serious, the text is neither aggressive nor heavy-handed in its themes. Instead, demonstrating a witty abstraction of its many personal themes."— Taro Williams, Wilderness House Literary ReviewJake Byrne is the author of Celebrate Pride with Lockheed Martin (Wolsak & Wynn, 2023) and DADDY (Brick Books, 2024), which won the 2025 Trillium Book Award for Poetry. In 2019, they won CV2's Foster Prize for poetry. They live in Toronto/tka:ronto.