A little Christmas Eve cheer - I'd like to recommend to all you Boxing day shoppers David McGimpsey's book of hilarious, pop-savvy, literate yet modestly-colloquial chubby sonnets (his term), Li'l Bastard. This is one of the key directions Canadian poetry and poetics has taken, thanks to Dr McGimpsey, in the last decade - and if you want to hear what Canada sounds like now when it is being smartly funny, here you go.
A poem for my mother, July 15 When she was dying And I was in a different country I dreamt I was there with her Flying over the ocean very quickly, And arriving in the room like a dream And I was a dream, but the meaning was more Than a dream has – it was a moving over time And land, over water, to get love across Fast enough, to be there, before she died, To lean over the small, huddled figure, In the dark, and without bothering her Even with apologies, and be a kiss in the air, A dream of a kiss, or even less, the thought of one, And when I woke, none of this had happened, She was still far distant, and we had not spoken.
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