Dennis's Practical Gods received almost overwhelming praise when it was first published. In her 2001 review of the work for Booklist, Donna Seaman calls it "lucid, canny, and warmly funny." Seaman remarks on what she sees as the overall theme of the collection: "What Dennis wants to know is, Why aren't the gods more responsive, more helpful, more accountable?" She appreciates the "plainspoken and resonant" quality of the poems, which she says "hopscotch from the divine to the ordinary as they challenge pagan gods and the biblical God."

In his 2002 review of the collection for The Antioch Review, John Taylor also gives Dennis high marks, noting that "the appropriate medium for the exposition of thought is usually prose." Taylor says that "some poets boldly circumvent this rule" and remarks that "Dennis is one of the rare and most masterly practitioners of 'thinking poetry' in the United States...