This thesis has two parts: a book of poems, Still Black Water, and a critical essay called “Anthony Lawrence and Images of the Father”. The poems explore love, illness, death, family, and the poets who have influenced the author. The critical essay looks closely at Anthony Lawrence’s poems about his father, placing them in a wider poetic and biographical context. It discusses key poems and how they shape the author’s own writing. Together, the poems and the essay reflect on memory, family, and the forces that guide a life in poetry.