Passengers

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.

ISBN-13: 9781487011253

Media Type: Paperback

Publisher: House of Anansi Press

Publication Date: 08-02-2022

Pages: 128

Product Dimensions: 6.00(w) x 8.00(h) x (d)

MICHAEL CRUMMEY is the author of twelve books of poetry and fiction. He was the inaugural winner of the $50,000 Writers’ Trust Fellowship in recognition of “exceptional creative ability and outstanding promise” in his work to date. His most recent novel, The Innocents, won the Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award and was a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, the Governor General’s Literary Award, and the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize. Little Dogs: New and Selected Poems appeared in 2017. He lives in St. John’s, where he is starting to feel his age.

Table of Contents

You Are Here: A Circumnavigation 1

Tranströmer on Arrival, St. John's International 5

Tranströmer on Signal Hill 9

Tranströmer on the Southside Hills 11

Tranströmer on Water Street 12

Tranströmer on George Street 13

Tranströmer on the Most Easterly Point in North America 14

Tranströmer on the Bell Island Ferry 15

Tranströmer on the Cliffs of Baccalieu 17

Tranströmer on the Hawke Hills and the Isthmus of Avalon 19

Tranströmer on the Dover Fault 21

From the Island, 1860 22

Tranströmer on Fogo Island 23

Tranströmer on Brimstone Head 24

Tranströmer on Change Islands, 1965 26

Black Postcards 27

Tranströmer on the DRL Coachline, Driving West 28

Tranströmer on the Exploits River 29

Tranströmer on Red Indian Lake 33

Tranströmer on the Gaff Topsails 34

Tranströmer on the Tip of the Great Northern Peninsula 35

Tranströmer on Saddle Island, Red Bay, Labrador 37

An Artist in the North 38

Tranströmer on the Labrador Straits, Near L'Anse Amour 40

Tranströmer on the Landwash at Old Ferolle 41

Tranströmer on the Tablelands, Gros Morne National Park 42

Tranströmer on the Blow-Me-Down Brook Trail 43

Tranströmer on the Port au Port Peninsula 44

Traffic 45

Tranströmer on the Friar, 700 Feet above Francois 47

Tranströmer on the Samiajij Miawpukek Reserve 48

Tranströmer on the Burin Peninsula 49

Tranströmer on Mistaken Point 50

Tranströmer on Signal Hill, Again 51

Tranströmer on Departure 53

Translator's Notes 54

The Dark Woods 63

Via Heathrow 67

Belfast 69

Warsaw 71

Innsbruck 72

Stockholm 74

Gdansk 76

Oswiecim 77

Vienna 79

Sarajevo 80

Kraków 81

Frankfurt am Main 83

Graz 84

Bohemia 85

Devilskin 87

Native Devil 91

Lucifer at Cards 93

The Devil's Cure 94

Devil's Footprint 95

The White Rock on the Black Road 96

Lucifer on George Street 97

White Devil 98

The Black Man, or Red Indians' Devil 99

Lucifer at Sobeys Square 100

Devilskin 101

The Hinges 103

Saviour's Letter 104

Lucifer at Health Sciences Emerg 105

Job's Cove, Conception Bay 106

Lucifer at St. Pat's Mercy Home 107

Transient 108

A Departure 110

Acknowledgements 113

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