Sitcom

Shortlisted for the 2007 A.M. Klein Prize for Poetry

‘Don’t forget the knife in my boot,’ I’d say
to myself, not even sure what I meant;
autumn yarrow and purple-flowered catmint
on a September street, not far from home;
I couldn’t see Venus in the night sky
or keep up with the plot lines in Judging Amy,
as I avowed not to play life pretty,
say all’s fair! as erstwhile pals drove away
to cottage country, their jobs secure.

Implicating extremes from Coriolanus to Karen Carpenter, David McGimpsey’s Sitcom is both serious poetry and a work of comedy.

Mischievous, generous and side-splittingly funny, this collection of wry soliloquies and sonnets begins with a milestone birthday and finds itself – through antic turns and lyric flips to demi-mondes as varied as the offices of university regents and the basic plot arc of Hawaii Five-O – to a sincere contemplation of mortality and the fashion sense of Mary Tyler Moore. Unembarrassed by its literary allusions or its hi-lo hybridity, Sitcom’s strategic and encompassing voice is prepared for each comedic disaster and is, somehow, always ready for next week’s episode.

‘McGimpsey displays erudition, clever insights and a knack for the wickedly funny wisecrack.’ – The Washington Post

‘[McGimpsey] finds the humanity hiding in the hilarity. This guy is as funny as David Sedaris, and more inventive.’ – The Ottawa Citizen