David McGimpsey



David McGimpsey (born and raised in Montreal) is a Canadian poet and humorist.

Life
He is one of Canada’s best comedic authors, noted by the Ottawa Citizen to be “as funny as David Sedaris and more inventive.” His poems and performances have garnered a wide readership and popular acclaim across North America. He is the author of the poetry collections: Hamburger Valley, California, Dogboy, Lardcake (ECW Press) and Sitcom (Coach House) as well as the award-winning critical study, Imagining Baseball: America's Pastime and Popular Culture (Indiana University Press). His book of short stories, Certifiable, was published with Insomniac Press (2004). His travel writings frequently appear in The Globe and Mail and he writes the "Sandwich of the Month" column for EnRoute magazine. His “unique, pop-acculturated poetry and fiction is indebted in equal parts to TV shows such as Hawaii Five-0 and Charlie’s Angels as well as Shakespearean tragedy and the Miltonic elegy”.

The most recent book of essays published about McGimpsey’s work is Population Me: Essays on David McGimpsey. The collected essays (by acclaimed poets and scholars) "examine McGimpsey’s various positions on literary history, class, nationalism, humor, love, and aesthetics, all of which are often mutually imbricated in McGimpsey’s work.”

McGimpsey teaches creative writing at Concordia University and is a member of the rock band Puggy Hammer.

Select Critical Acclaim
Nathalie Atkinson via The National Post: "Given that McGimpsey manages to do this while name-checking Gilligan's Island, Annabeth Gish, Mary Tyler Moore and the Fonz and keeping up the iambic pentameter, I say give this man the Leacock medal, already."

The Washington Post: "McGimpsey displays erudition, clever insights and a knack for the wickedly funny wisecrack"

Jacqueline via The Georgia Straight: "McGimpsey manages to dredge up every television reference you've ever forgotten, and spins them into a Hawaii Five-O libretto that's immune to limitations of form, content, or even just good taste. In fact, his poetic argument is that there's no such thing as good taste. His writing embraces the full range of cultural references at work in contemporary society, and blends them together without mercy."