MORE AFTER THE JUMP!!!
My boyfriend and I heard about this book from Michael's Lista's review in the National Post.. A week or so later it arrived at our apartment.
It is one of the funniest books I've read in a while. I said something similar about Matrix Magazine when I read their recent hockey issue. Well it turns out, some of the stuff I was laughing at in Matrix was written by McGimpsey, too!
Most people know McGimpsey for the presence of pop culture in his poetry, but Lista comments that McGimpsey is also a formal master (and the two aren't mutually exclusive). McGimpsey writes "chubby" sonnets, or sixteen line poems. I like McGimpsey's ability to write hilarious lines and often very sad ones, and often in the same poem. I like how he writes about twitter, and facebook, and Taylor Swift, and fast food, and television shows. I like how the more of these "chubby" sonnets I read, the more I notice how relaxed his lines are and how well they flow. There's also a shift towards the end, similar to a regular sonnet, that gets back to ideas expressed in the title and initial lines but at the same time gestures forward.
Here is a great interview by McGimpsey in Maisonneuve magazine.
Here is an interview in Event Magazine.
I'd like to type up a poem to share, but it seemed like a lot of pressure to choose just one poem.. one stanza to define the collection.. I couldn't do it. I think you should just buy the book. Or at least borrow it from the library. It's seriously funny. I'll have to swing by Chapters to see if the new Matrix is in!
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