Li'l Bastard

by David McGimpsey

Finalist for the 2012 Governor General's Award for Poetry
Melding the deeply personal and the culturally popular, Li'l Bastard is confessional poetry as written by a chronic trickster and a committed liar. Written in part as an homage to John Berryman and Robert Lowell, this sequence of sixteen-line poems—"chubby sonnets"—explores the poet's obsessions (food, aging, baseball, beer, and Barnaby Jones ) and map his midlife crisis on a wild flight through Montreal, Chicago, Nashville, Texas, and Los Angeles. Poignant and often achingly funny, Li'l Bastard will cement David McGimpsey's status as a beloved original. David McGimpsey is the author of four acclaimed collections of poetry, including Lardcake and Sitcom . He teaches at Concordia University in Montreal.

Genres: Poetry, Canada

152 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2011

About the author

David has a PhD in English Literature. Writes a regular humour column called "The Self-Esteem Workout" for Matrix. and the "Sandwich of the Month" column for EnRoute magazine. David is a songwriter and musician, and member of the rock band Puggy Hammer. He is the Montreal fiction editor of the e-magazine Joyland and is the fiction editor for the Punchy Writers Series at DC Books. David was named by the CBC as one of the "Top Ten English-Language Poets in Canada". David currently teaches creative writing and literature at Concordia University. excerpts from Li'l Bastard 2011

Reviews

[Andrew Sare · Rating 4 out of 5]

" One of the innovations the Parrabee
tribe introduced to Europeans
were the volume measures mezzo, grande
and venti. Look it up on your cup, dope."

128 Chubby Sonnets by David McGimpsey. While you can say that poetry can take pretty much any form, I characterize these more as chirps or rips at society. McGimpsey unleashes a tirade of smart-Alec inventiveness done up in very modern language. I'll look into him again.

[THE TORONTO QUARTERLY · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hey, Everyone! Check out my interview with poet David McGimpsey as we discuss his latest collection of sonnets Li'l Bastard (Coach House Books, 2012) and his feelings on being nominated for this years Governor General's Award in Poetry. Read it now on my TTQ Blog.
http://thetorontoquarterly.blogspot.c...

[Alan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Perhaps two stars is a bit harsh, but there's something *bad* about this collection of poems. That being said, I did enjoy parts of it, but not too many. What starts off as a refreshing bit of social criticism and wit quickly becomes repetitive and cheap. While McGimpsy does capture modernity and city culture quite nicely, this success gets boggled down by uninteresting references to pop culture and middle-american fluff. I would not call this collection a waste of time however, it does have some memorable lines. I particularly liked the passage about how "life is more relaxed here [in L.A], relieved of a Grad student's sense of fair", and found his diatribe about ratemyteacher and B- Average students pretty funny.

[Zibbernaut · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF. dont know what the point of this poetry collection was. Felt all over the place and boring as well.

[Jeff Buddle · Rating 4 out of 5]

McGimpsey is a master at making the pedestrian seem profound. In his hands, the TV show "Barnaby Jones" seems like holy scripture. His 16 line sonnets twist pop culture into important touchstones. Taken collectively, what we're really talking about here is a mid-life crisis, an academic almost resentful about being in academia, but more upset about growing ever older.

[Arjun · Rating 5 out of 5]

Any list of best books of 2011 that does not include this book is invalid.

A kind of melange of pseudo biography, this collection of "chubby" sonnets (16 lines not 14) travel the continent (Montreal, Chicago, Texas, California), pray at the altar of Buddy Ebsen (well, Barnaby Jones) and kind of skewer (affectionately) the whole carnival that is academia. But most of all it is awesome. It is funny, it is sad (though it is mostly funny) and it is as entertaining as a "sonnet" has any right to be.

[Amy · Rating 1 out of 5]

This might be one of the worst and more inaccessible books of poetry I have ever read.

Literally the only thing that kept me slogging page by page is the fact that I'm behind on my Goodreads yearly challenge and I really needed another book ticked off the list.

I think this book just wasn't written for me. It's about a mid-life crisis of some dude from Quebec. Like, who cares, except maybe for other middle aged men who want to run away from their crumbling lives to Texas or whatever.

[The 49th Shelf]

One of the titles on our Most Anticipated Books of Fall 2011 list.