Dad Jokes from Late in the Patriarchy

Dad Jokes from Late in the Patriarchy, the fourth collection from award-winning poet Amorak Huey, is an unflinching, humorous meditation on American masculinity and fatherhood. Drawing on fictional characters, cultural figures, and personal stories, Huey deftly weaves an intergenerational tale about coming of age as a boy in the twentieth century and becoming a father in the twenty-first. In a collection built around the narrative structure of a joke, the poems’ speakers reflect on the complex intersections of childhood, war, love, pop culture, and parenting. These speakers seek to define themselves via role models both personal and cultural, as societal and religious myths mingle with larger-than-life icons such as Arnold Schwarzenegger, Ariana Grande, and Davy Crockett. From Southwestern deserts to the flatlands of Indiana to the post-9/11 landscape of New York, Dad Jokes from Late in the Patriarchy deconstructs the enduring notion of American patriarchy and explores the delineations between collective and individual memory. Playful and profound, nostalgic but not naive, these poems trace a masterful journey of personal discovery and fatherly love.