New ebooks From Canadian Indies
Description
Finalist for the 2012 Governor General's Award for Poetry
David McGimpsey's fifth collection of poems takes to new levels the melding of the deeply personal and the culturally popular that drove his acclaimed book Sitcom (nominated for the A. M. Klein Prize for Poetry) – this is confessional poetry as written by a chronic trickster and a committed liar.
Written in part as an homage to the poetic idols of his youth, John Berryman and Robert Lowell, Li'l Bastard is a collection of 'chubby sonnets' – sixteen-line poems organized in eight twenty-poem sequences – that explore the poet's obsessions and engagements with America and Canada, popular culture, love and death, aging, baseball and beer and Barnaby Jones. Adopting a wild array of tone and artistic strategies, from picaresque to fantasy, to observational humour and the simple song lyric, these poems map the poet's midlife crisis on a wild flight that touches down in Montreal, Chicago, Nashville, Texas and Los Angeles.
Poignant and often achingly funny, Li'l Bastard will no doubt cement McGimpsey's status as a beloved and ever-surprising original.
Contributor Notes
David McGimpsey was born and raised in Montreal. He has a PhD in English Literature and is the author of the award-winning study Imagining Baseball: America's Pastime and Popular Culture . His previous collection, Sitcom, was a finalist for the A. M. Klein Prize and the ReLit AWard and was named one of Quill & Quire 's 'Books of the Year.' His travel writings frequently appear in the Globe and Mail and he writes the 'Sandwich of the Month' column for EnRoute magazine. He teaches at Concordia University.
Editorial Reviews
‘McGimpsey’s unruly, uncontained poems marry formal ingenuity and a raucous, hilarious sensibility. He’s also unafraid to poke at the eyes of our more inflated literary pretensions.’ – Quill & Quire
‘McGimpsey writes descriptively, singing the world as it actually is ... A truly inclusive and scrupulous feast, caloric, chaotic and free.’ – National Post
‘Hilarious and brilliant ... These chubby sonnets spill ingenuity over their waistbands.’ – Winnipeg Free Press
‘McGimpsey’s unruly, uncontained poems marry formal ingenuity and a raucous, hilarious sensibility. He’s also unafraid to poke at the eyes of our more inflated literary pretensions.’ – Quill & Quire
‘McGimpsey writes descriptively, singing the world as it actually is ... A truly inclusive and scrupulous feast, caloric, chaotic and free.’ – National Post
‘Hilarious and brilliant ... These chubby sonnets spill ingenuity over their waistbands.’ – Winnipeg Free Press
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