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