Li'l Bastard

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.'McGimpsey writes descriptively, singing the world as it actually is … A truly inclusive and scrupulous feast, caloric, chaotic and free.' – National Post'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 and Quire'Hilarious and brilliant … These chubby sonnets spill ingenuity over their waistbands.' – Winnipeg Free Press'If you're into poetry, you should be reading David McGimpsey. Not because his books are hilarious – which they are – but because his writing brims with a charming honesty that is both infectious and refreshing.' Geist Magazine'Li'l Bastard, is what The Dream Songs might have been if John Berryman had been drunk on McDo milkshakes instead of alcohol … McGimpsey is the master of effortless irreverence. Where other poets exert themselves looking for ways to innovate, he skewers lyrical earnestness on the one hand and high-brow reinvention of the wheel on the other, while still responding to poetic tradition and forging his own path away from the mainstream.' – Montreal Review of Books'The writing is creative, funny, and reveals the sometimes innocent, sometimes tragic, pleasures of reading and writing. McGimpsey is obviously having a lot of fun, and so are we.' – The Rover'Achilles and Odysseus may have seen more action, but they're less funny than David McGimpsey.' – Edmonton Journal