Passengers - by Michael Crummey (Paperback)

About the Book

"The sixth and, on the surface, most peculiar poetry collection from Scotiabank Giller Prize finalist Michael Crummey. Eclectic, unpredictable, and strange, Passengers follows Swedish poet Tomas Transtromer 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."--

Book Synopsis

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.

Review Quotes

"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