he's into Grecian urns, so am I!

Mike Spry: I guess the things I find interesting about all three books is that relationships with tradition and contemporary. You're equally comfortable discussing Twain and Maupassant as John Stamos and Beyoncé.

David McGimpsey: I don't think of those things as being unusual. The only thing that becomes unusual is people's insistence that things like John Stamos don't belong in poems. To me it's all just metaphorical matter, and I'm not really writing about John Stamos anymore than John Keats is writing about a Grecian urn. You don't say, "Oh I love John Keats because he likes Grecian urns too, this poet talks about the things that I like, he's into Grecian urns, so am I!" The world of poetry, for whatever reason, is fairly uncomfortable with the world of working class culture.

...

Spry: What about the Internet as a place, but more specifically social media as a place?

McGimpsey: I think these things have been an enormous benefit to literature. I can’t justify it in a full way. My anecdotal psychological insight into this is that Facebook and social media has made younger people generally better poets than they used to be, and the reason why is that now it becomes a thing that people just know how to do without being told how to do it: How to materialize the self. The function that poets often engage in to where your speaking self as a poet is a kind of materialization of an aspect of your personality. It’s not you, but a version of you. And good version of you. One where you’re more articulate, more on point, one where you’re more perceptive. Your Facebook is like that. It’s a materialization of who you are.

- David McGimpsey, in interview with Mike Spry over at Cosmonauts Avenue. You can read the whole thing here.

the reading of poetry is not structured into the meaning of poetry

The Toronto Quarterly: Do you think poetry is currently going through some kind of resurgence these days or is it still pretty much ignored by the masses?

David McGimpsey: Poetry, as a material commodity, is not meant for mass consumption. If there was poetry admired by the masses, it would quickly not be considered "poetry" by the elite institutions which structure meaning around the idea of poetry. Poetry is certainly going through a boon as a hobby and as cherished practice. I imagine the institutional support of MFA programs everywhere allows and fosters that affection among thousands. It has created a different marketplace over time, I think, and one where the reading of poetry is not structured into the meaning of "poetry". As such, "poetry" exists more as a social ideology to support the middle class. Facebook and Twitter are compelling recruitment tools and have brought focus and cohesion to the world of poetry in ways which once seemed utterly impossible. I'm not shaking my cane at the "kids of today" for not knowing who Ed Dorn or whoever is (who cares?), but saying the market is now centred around the function of creative writing as a social force rather than reading actual books of poetry.

- David McGimpsey, in interview with The Toronto Quarterly. You can read the whole thing here.

akimbo!

9. Not every poet is a dedicated obscurantist who won’t just say what they mean. Poets are just gifted at the art of euphemism—of being able to call two readings in two coffee houses a “book tour,” of being able to declare a reluctance to wake up before noon a “vocation,” of being able to conjure up an adept comparison of the moon to “a pie plate of wonder.”

10. Poets are very attractive. This is just true. No misconception there. It is, in fact, the preternatural attractiveness of poets that allows them to thrive, despite society’s doubts, and to go on and continue drinking some weird homemade broth out of a thermos and to continue using the word "akimbo" any damn chance they get.

- David McGimpsey, reading my mind (and diary... and notebook...) while lampooning poets in his "10 myths about poets" over at the Canada Writes site. You can read all ten of McGimpsey's myths here.