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Poetry Canadian

Passengers

by (author) Michael Crummey

Publisher
House of Anansi Press Inc
Initial publish date
Aug 2022
Category
Canadian, Places
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9781487011253
    Publish Date
    Aug 2022
    List Price
    $19.99
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9781487011260
    Publish Date
    Aug 2022
    List Price
    $16.99

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Description

The sixth and, on the surface, most innovative poetry collection from Scotiabank Giller Prize finalist Michael Crummey.
Eclectic, unpredictable, and strange, Passengers follows Swedish poet Tomas Tranströmer on an imagined circumnavigation of Newfoundland; traces the island escapades of Lucifer from the time of his arrival as a stowaway in the Middle Ages; and wanders the pre-pandemic cities of Europe, touching down in Stockholm’s ABBA museum, the Belfast Public Library, Austria’s plague cemeteries, and the Czech Republic’s Punkva Caves.

Widely considered “one of Canada's finest writers” (Globe and Mail), Crummey is noted for the immediacy and emotional impact of his poetry and fiction and for his ability to raise the vernacular to planes of “exquisite beauty.”

Part travelogue, part archeological dig, Passengers is an eccentric guide to the wild geography, folklore, and misbegotten history of the human heart.

About the author

Michael Crummey is the author of four books of poetry, and a book of short stories, Flesh and Blood. His first novel, River Thieves, was a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, his second, The Wreckage, was a national bestseller and a finalist for the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize. His most recent novel, the bestselling Galore, won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best Book. Under the Keel is his first collection in a decade. He lives in St. John’s, Newfoundland.

Michael Crummey's profile page

Awards

  • Short-listed, E.J. Pratt Family Poetry Award

Editorial Reviews

"A native of Newfoundland, Crummey puts travel and alienation at the center of his sixth book, summoning personae from the Devil to the Nobel laureate Tomas Tranströmer (the passengers of the title, perhaps) to evoke an outsider’s perspective." — New York Times

"In the impressive number of unusual but apt similes and metaphors ... Crummey strikes a compelling balance in tone, writing with both affection and a note of wearied cynicism about the world around him." — Quill & Quire