30 Poets in 30 Days

If Gary Dop hadn't been at the AWP Conference it's possible we would have had to fly to Virginia to get him to be a part of our 30 Poets project. That's how much I admire him and his work. For the sake of our little nonprofit's budget we were lucky that he was there in Seattle. Gary is one of the kindest, smartest, funniest, talented-est people I know. (If you run into him ask him to show you his 3D cube poem. It's brilliant!) Writer and professor Gary Dop, together with the best faculty in the country, founded the Randolph College MFA program, the low-residency MFA which Poets & Writers hailed as a "a new kind of MFA program that makes diversity its mission." Dop is the author of the poetry collection Father, Child, Water (Red Hen Press), and his most recent play is Deemocracy: An American Absurdity in One Act (Rain Taxi). Prior to his gig in Virginia at Randolph College, Dop taught screenwriting at the University of Minnesota, and he was the Writer in Residence at North Central University. Dop's poems, stories, and essays have appeared in venues including Georgia Review, Southern Review, Prairie Schooner, New Letters, Sugar House Review, and North American Review. Dop earned his MFA through the University of Nebraska, and his experience as an actor, performer, and comic have helped him engage audiences throughout the country. Gary is the recipient of the Great Plains Emerging Writer Prize, a Pushcart Prize Special Mention, and the Gillie A. Larew Distinguished Teaching Award.