Skip to main content

Poem by David McGimpsey On Canada Day

David McGimpsey (pictured) is one of the funniest and most brilliant of Canadian writers, popular as a poet, prose writer, and serious thinker on, among other things, baseball and TV. I've been including his work in anthologies for years.

This poem originally appeared in the special section on "The New Canadian Poetry" I edited for New American Writing in 2005. Eyewear is very pleased to reprise this self-reflexive blog poem on Canada Day, July 1, 2009.

Please Don’t Make Me Read Your Blog

I’d do anything
if I could have your love—
I’d give up strip poker
and my apricot facial scrubs

To see you smile I’d drink
30-day old egg nog.
But, please,
don’t make me read your blog.

I’m sure your mother
said some cutting things to you
and that sweater you lent your girlfriend
is not going to walk back home to you.

But, please, please, please,
don't make me read your blog.

To spend some time with you
I’d try your ham bits stroganoff
and I’d clip my toenails—
at least the biggest one

To show you how much I care
I’d give up my homemade rum.
But, please,
don't make me read your blog

I know the people you work with
say all these hilarious things
and your take on modern politics
has an unusual sting

But, please, please, please,
don’t make me read your blog.

by David McGimpsey

Comments

Jack Ruttan said…
The snark stuff is funny. But oh so boring the snarkers' versions of "propriety!"

I love and hate poets, but implore you, please don't stop, or let the pricks bully you into plastic conformity.

Not that I think this would ever happen.
Donald Brown said…
Maybe it's just me, but I'd rather read the blogs by the people whose blogs I read than read that poem.
Unknown said…
Simple alarmism, Todd.
I am glad I am, by and large, a vegetarian. I don't consume nearly the vast number of unhealthy antibiotics and hormones that the factory farms are forcing on the poor animals. If people live better lives, they have a better chance. It is no guarantee, but death exists. We all die sometime, whether at 50 (like Michael Jackson), or at 104.
A happy July 4th to you (even though you and I aren't American);)
Anna said…
'Don't make me read a blog, just feature me in one'??

Popular posts from this blog

CLIVE WILMER'S THOM GUNN SELECTED POEMS IS A MUST-READ

THAT HANDSOME MAN  A PERSONAL BRIEF REVIEW BY TODD SWIFT I could lie and claim Larkin, Yeats , or Dylan Thomas most excited me as a young poet, or even Pound or FT Prince - but the truth be told, it was Thom Gunn I first and most loved when I was young. Precisely, I fell in love with his first two collections, written under a formalist, Elizabethan ( Fulke Greville mainly), Yvor Winters triad of influences - uniquely fused with an interest in homerotica, pop culture ( Brando, Elvis , motorcycles). His best poem 'On The Move' is oddly presented here without the quote that began it usually - Man, you gotta go - which I loved. Gunn was - and remains - so thrilling, to me at least, because so odd. His elegance, poise, and intelligence is all about display, about surface - but the surface of a panther, who ripples with strength beneath the skin. With Gunn, you dressed to have sex. Or so I thought.  Because I was queer (I maintain the right to lay claim to that

IQ AND THE POETS - ARE YOU SMART?

When you open your mouth to speak, are you smart?  A funny question from a great song, but also, a good one, when it comes to poets, and poetry. We tend to have a very ambiguous view of intelligence in poetry, one that I'd say is dysfunctional.  Basically, it goes like this: once you are safely dead, it no longer matters how smart you were.  For instance, Auden was smarter than Yeats , but most would still say Yeats is the finer poet; Eliot is clearly highly intelligent, but how much of Larkin 's work required a high IQ?  Meanwhile, poets while alive tend to be celebrated if they are deemed intelligent: Anne Carson, Geoffrey Hill , and Jorie Graham , are all, clearly, very intelligent people, aside from their work as poets.  But who reads Marianne Moore now, or Robert Lowell , smart poets? Or, Pound ?  How smart could Pound be with his madcap views? Less intelligent poets are often more popular.  John Betjeman was not a very smart poet, per se.  What do I mean by smart?

"I have crossed oceans of time to find you..."

In terms of great films about, and of, love, we have Vertigo, In The Mood for Love , and Casablanca , Doctor Zhivago , An Officer and a Gentleman , at the apex; as well as odder, more troubling versions, such as Sophie's Choice and  Silence of the Lambs .  I think my favourite remains Bram Stoker's Dracula , with the great immortal line "I have crossed oceans of time to find you...".