Todd Dillard
Todd Dillard's work has appeared in American Poetry Review, Guernica, Fairy Tale Review, The Adroit Journal, Best New Poets, Waxwing, and elsewhere. His debut collection Ways We Vanish (Okay Donkey Press) was a finalist for the 2021 Balcones Poetry Award. His chapbook Ragnarök at the Father-Daughter Dance is forthcoming from Variant Literature. He is a Poetry Editor for The Boiler Journal. He lives in Philadelphia with his wife, two kids, and works as an editor and writer for a hospital.
“I'm trying to teach my daughter grace
is everywhere, which is why I think she leaves
bowls out in the rain, to give the rain a place to live,
leaves the back door open in case the storm wants to come in.”
“…it's important to document tenderness and beauty in times of disaster and harm. The expectation that a writer should be one-note in deference to disaster is as absurd as it is insidious. A human is greater than the sum of all the awful things that have happened to them. We have to start and end here, otherwise—no matter your intentions!—you're working to dehumanize someone.”
February 25, 2024