Under the Keel

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.

These poems are striking not only for Crummey's skilful use of language and imagery, but for his ability to capture small moments that will be immediately recognizable to most readers. Tender but also at times chilling... the faces [Under the Keel] conjures are hauntingly engaging, and the sentiments it conveys echo long after the end has been reached.