The brilliant new collection from Michael Crummey, bestselling author of Galore.

Michael Crummey’s first collection in a decade has something for everyone: Love and marriage and airport grief; how not to get laid in a Newfoundland mining town; total immersion baptism; the grand machinery of decay; migrant music and invisible crowns and mortifying engagements with babysitters; the transcendent properties of home brew. Whether charting the merciless complications of childhood, or the unpredictable consolations of middle age, these are poems of magic and ruin. Under the Keel affirms Crummey’s place as one of our necessary writers.

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

[Crummey] has a remarkable ear and a useful memory of times past that are still redolent in this changing present.

Ottawa Citizen

[Crummey’s poems] are the fairy tales of real life.

Atlantic Books Today

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.

Quill and Quire