Gertrude Stein: Mcnuggets

Vigour Dept: Though silly, the line contains an odd pathos, as if the speaker once made the wrong choice. Other poems offer more pointed satire: "I'm not a stylist but I did discover one phrase / that could make anything seem insignificant -- / and that phrase was 'Made in Canada.' " Although supposedly "not a stylist," McGimpsey's lines contain uncommon vigour, according to Winnipeg Free Press and hILARIOUS and brilliant, Montreal-based David McGimpsey's Li'l Bastard Coach House, 152 pages, $18 collects 128 "chubby sonnets" 16 lines rather than 14 . McGimpsey scavenges through cultural junk for rusted wisdom: "If you're offered the choice of McNuggets / with a wish-granting genie and McNuggets / without a wish-granting genie, please / take the ones with the wish-granting genie." At other moments, McGimpsey does not shy from buffing his poems with more classical polish: "The fire never left me, it still burns unwise." These chubby sonnets spill ingenuity over their waistbands. Like Gertrude Stein before him or so reports McGimpsey , he "did not / just wake up knowing how to punch a zebra." (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.