Dogboy

by David McGimpsey

David McGimpsey’s Dogboy picks up and develops the adventure begun in his last collection, the critically acclaimed Lardcake. These strongly-voiced, characteristically funny poems engage and interrogate contemporary popular culture and wittily establish the province of the loser. With some fresh insight into literary history, this collection dares to “Would Yeats approve of the cheeseburger?” “What if Milton’s Lycidas was a once-hopeful greeting-card writer?”

119 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

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

[M.W.P.M. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hamlet walks up to Ophelia and says
"What did you do with that video? The one
where Fonzie tells everybody to wake up
and for a moment they do." Ophelia weeps
"I didn't touch your stupid videos,"
and she slams the door. From the other side
she recites a poem about wild weekends
and the regrets of the dim workplace.
Hamlet rewinds, curses the neighbours
and cues up his very favourite scenes.
"I lived for an afternoon well beyond"
she says in her lost country girl voice,
while her prince looks through the cool tokens
of Wisconsin's ruined castles of cheese.

- Goudamundo, pg. 19

* * *

Long before you could waste your life on-line,
before Toronto theatre, before the phrase
"The best thing from Marisa Tomei since My Cousin Vinny"
I would sit in my office and fall apart.

Once, a kid with a strange football injury
tole me to "sit up" and take his complaints "like a man."
Oh, I tried, said "un-hunh" a lot and wondered
what I'd miss more if I gave up, the disdain or the contempt?

I'd take the subway uptown in the evenings,
working the day in my head till I sounded like a brave Ulsterman;
my limp comb-over unravelling with sleep,
always missing my stop, not knowing where I was.

The footballer went on to write more books than me,
even claimed he had sex with Sylvia Plath -
he wrote: "She was going ooo-wee like some hillbilly chick."
We all have some business to take care of.

- PhD with Perfect PH Balance, pg. 36

* * *

I once beat the hell out of my best friend
Because he dropped a fy ball in short left;
I wish I could go back again to test
My wits - beat him harder and put an end
To the thought I may ever start to mend
The past, so send a note to the press
That bypasses my biceps and upsets
My art and my plan to never learn French.
I too sing a lazy kind of love:
For the next album I have a song called "Bone."
It's about this movie I sort of half-saw
(Fast-forwarded through - maybe with Rip Torn?)
Anyway it's about this guy and his dog
And they don't turn back and they don't turn back.

- Confessions of a Softball Bastard, pg. 77