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Little Dogs: New and Selected Poems
Twenty years after the publication of his debut, Little New and Selected Poems brings together selections from Michael Crummey’s first four books of poetry with a significant offering of new work. In this collection, Crummey emerges not only as the master storyteller we know him to be, but also as one of our great poets of connection. Whether reporting from a solitary room or a shared bed, recalling the barbed delirium of adolescence, the subtler negotiations of mature love, or the generational echoes between fathers and sons, these poems are deeply engaged in the business of living with others. Of living with the absence of those who have shaped and sometimes scarred us. Unafraid of confronting the darker corners of desire or of digging into the past to make sense of the present, Crummey has already given us a tremendous body of work. Little Dogs showcases the evolution of one the most distinct and celebrated Canadian writers of his generation.
288 pages, Paperback
First published April 5, 2016
4 people are currently reading
89 people want to read
About the author
Michael Crummey
26 books1,002 followersBorn in Buchans, Newfoundland, Crummey grew up there and in Wabush, Labrador, where he moved with his family in the late 1970s. He went to university with no idea what to do with his life and, to make matters worse, started writing poems in his first year. Just before graduating with a BA in English he won the Gregory Power Poetry Award. First prize was three hundred dollars (big bucks back in 1987) and it gave him the mistaken impression there was money to be made in poetry.
He published a slender collection of poems called Arguments with Gravity in 1996, followed two years later by Hard Light. 1998 also saw the publication of a collection of short stories, Flesh and Blood, and Crummey's nomination for the Journey Prize.
Crummey's debut novel, River Thieves (2001) was a Canadian bestseller, winning the Thomas Head Raddall Award and the Winterset Award for Excellence in Newfoundland Writing. It was also shortlisted for the Giller Prize, the Commonwealth Writers' Prize, the Books in Canada First Novel Award, and the IMPAC Award. His second novel, The Wreckage (2005), was nominated for the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize and longlisted for the 2007 IMPAC Award.
Galore was published in Canada in 2009. A national bestseller, it was the winner of the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best Book (Canada & Caribbean), the Canadian Authors' Association Fiction Prize and was shortlisted for the Governor-General's Award for fiction.
He lives in St. John's, Newfoundland with his wife and three step-kids.
He published a slender collection of poems called Arguments with Gravity in 1996, followed two years later by Hard Light. 1998 also saw the publication of a collection of short stories, Flesh and Blood, and Crummey's nomination for the Journey Prize.
Crummey's debut novel, River Thieves (2001) was a Canadian bestseller, winning the Thomas Head Raddall Award and the Winterset Award for Excellence in Newfoundland Writing. It was also shortlisted for the Giller Prize, the Commonwealth Writers' Prize, the Books in Canada First Novel Award, and the IMPAC Award. His second novel, The Wreckage (2005), was nominated for the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize and longlisted for the 2007 IMPAC Award.
Galore was published in Canada in 2009. A national bestseller, it was the winner of the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best Book (Canada & Caribbean), the Canadian Authors' Association Fiction Prize and was shortlisted for the Governor-General's Award for fiction.
He lives in St. John's, Newfoundland with his wife and three step-kids.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
October 27, 2017
These poems are saved from bleakness by the undercurrent of love and respect for the harsh landscape and the tough and tender people that populate its sparse hospitality.
March 27, 2022
I'm a big fan of Michael Crummey's fiction so I had high hopes for his poetry. I was not disappointed. Little Dogs is a collection of some previously published poems and a few new poems. He writes of the ordinary; love, life, place with a slight tinge of melancholy or regret elevating the ordinary by clever word play, a lovely lyricism and a depth and a wisdom I've enjoyed in his fiction. Excerpts from a few favorites,
Northern Lights, Looking Back
...The hard times were anchored miles off still-----
It was just beauty that hooked and held our our sight,
Made us lonely for something that travelled
through our time like water sieving a net.
Questions Of Travel.
...she traveled to escape the fear
she was her mother's daughter
to have something useful to do
with the baggage she carried,
to keep her buried head above water
Northern Lights, Looking Back
...The hard times were anchored miles off still-----
It was just beauty that hooked and held our our sight,
Made us lonely for something that travelled
through our time like water sieving a net.
Questions Of Travel.
...she traveled to escape the fear
she was her mother's daughter
to have something useful to do
with the baggage she carried,
to keep her buried head above water
May 9, 2018
Little Dogs, being a collection of Crummey's poetry is anything but crummy (ohmygosh:I'mso sorryIcouldn'thelpit). In fact, Crummey's poetry -especially in his earlier works - is imbued with a powerful sense of narrative which makes for a reading experience quite unlike that of the (sadly) commerically successful Hallmark-like poetry that is so popular today.
Crummey's craft is practiced and restrained, conscious, quiet and respectful - on a spectrum entirely of its own and yet separate from the more experimental and wild poetry of Barwin.
Some favourites include "Morning Labrador Coast", "Cigarettes", "Cod (1)", "Stealing Bait", "Names of the Ropes", "Bread", "The Inevitable Child", "Artifacts", "Boys", "Girls", "Albert", "A Stone", "Cause of Death and Remarks", "Mark Waterman Lightkeeper (Retired) Addresses His Successor Ca. 1931", "Hope Chest", "Getting the Marriage Into Bed", "50", "Crying Jag", "The Eternal", "Cinquante", "April Retriever", and "Boxers".
Crummey's craft is practiced and restrained, conscious, quiet and respectful - on a spectrum entirely of its own and yet separate from the more experimental and wild poetry of Barwin.
Some favourites include "Morning Labrador Coast", "Cigarettes", "Cod (1)", "Stealing Bait", "Names of the Ropes", "Bread", "The Inevitable Child", "Artifacts", "Boys", "Girls", "Albert", "A Stone", "Cause of Death and Remarks", "Mark Waterman Lightkeeper (Retired) Addresses His Successor Ca. 1931", "Hope Chest", "Getting the Marriage Into Bed", "50", "Crying Jag", "The Eternal", "Cinquante", "April Retriever", and "Boxers".
January 1, 2017
This is my second poetry collection this year!! I loved Sweetland and Galore and trusted Michael Crummey to come through again with his incredible writing. And he did. Beautiful poetry!
December 19, 2016
My first encounter with Michael Crummey's work was his novel Sweetland, a fictional story set on a remote island in Newfoundland. I found his writing style to be very enjoyable as he described the rough landscape and equally gritty way of life, all embodied in an old fisherman, who would not or could not (or both) let go of this place easily even as most of his generation is dying off and the younger ones are moving away to find work and escape the hardscrabble way of life required in this place of isolation. In the story, his main character is a man deeply rooted in a particular place and vocation, one which holds all the memories which now haunt him.
In these poems, dating back to as early as 1996 up until the present, Crummey has some these similar snippets and snapshots from life in and around fishing communities. In the first set of poems in this collection, he weaves remembrances of fishing for cod off the Labrador coast, the catching, cleaning, salting down, along with all the sleepless intensity of bringing in the fish while they can be had. He weaves together the sounds, smells, tastes, textures, and sights of surf, nets, fishing shacks, first light breaking over the water, fishing crews, boats, kerosene lamps (to help date the memories), the chill of water and weather, and all those fish (cod, capelin, etc.) Some of these poems appear to be somewhat autobiographical as he mentions his father and or grandfather. My favorite from this first section is titled RIVERS/ROADS -
I thought I was following a track of freedom
and for awhile it was
-Adrienne Rich
Consider the earnestness of pavement
its dark elegant sheen after rain
its insistence on leading you somewhere
A highway wants to own the landscape
it sections prairie into neat squares
swallows mile after mile of countryside
to connect the dots of cities and towns
to make sense of things
A river is less opinionated
less predictable
it doesn't argue with gravity
its history is a series of delicate negotiations with
geography and time
Wet your feet all you want
Hericlitus says
it's never the river you remember
A road repeats itself incessantly
obsessed with its own small truth
it wants you to believe in something particular
The destination you have in mind when you set out
is nowhere you have ever been
Where you arrive finally depends on
how you get there
by river or by road
(Michael Crummey, Little Dogs: New and Selected, Canada: Anansi Press, Inc., 2016, pp. 11-2)
From Capelin Scull, I particularly liked the two lines from lines 29-30:
They had come such a long way
and given themselves up so completely (pp. 18-9)
In these poems, dating back to as early as 1996 up until the present, Crummey has some these similar snippets and snapshots from life in and around fishing communities. In the first set of poems in this collection, he weaves remembrances of fishing for cod off the Labrador coast, the catching, cleaning, salting down, along with all the sleepless intensity of bringing in the fish while they can be had. He weaves together the sounds, smells, tastes, textures, and sights of surf, nets, fishing shacks, first light breaking over the water, fishing crews, boats, kerosene lamps (to help date the memories), the chill of water and weather, and all those fish (cod, capelin, etc.) Some of these poems appear to be somewhat autobiographical as he mentions his father and or grandfather. My favorite from this first section is titled RIVERS/ROADS -
I thought I was following a track of freedom
and for awhile it was
-Adrienne Rich
Consider the earnestness of pavement
its dark elegant sheen after rain
its insistence on leading you somewhere
A highway wants to own the landscape
it sections prairie into neat squares
swallows mile after mile of countryside
to connect the dots of cities and towns
to make sense of things
A river is less opinionated
less predictable
it doesn't argue with gravity
its history is a series of delicate negotiations with
geography and time
Wet your feet all you want
Hericlitus says
it's never the river you remember
A road repeats itself incessantly
obsessed with its own small truth
it wants you to believe in something particular
The destination you have in mind when you set out
is nowhere you have ever been
Where you arrive finally depends on
how you get there
by river or by road
(Michael Crummey, Little Dogs: New and Selected, Canada: Anansi Press, Inc., 2016, pp. 11-2)
From Capelin Scull, I particularly liked the two lines from lines 29-30:
They had come such a long way
and given themselves up so completely (pp. 18-9)
February 23, 2025
New and selected poems from a favourite writer, this was a great way to get introduced to Crummey’s excellent poetry. The book includes selections from his previous four collections and a set of new poems.
The landscapes, the people, the history and the personal details are intertwined beautifully to tell lovely and sad stories from his homeland in Newfoundland. Having heard about some of these elements over the years, it was touching to read about them from a slightly different but aligned perspective. Best were Capelin Scull, Bread, Stars on the Water, and Under Silk, and The Hangover.
It was interesting to see the evolution of the poet, as he grows older and moves away from writing about historical events and more to writing about his own personal experiences, still with hints of the past that are so engrained on people from that region – their history written in their genes.
The landscapes, the people, the history and the personal details are intertwined beautifully to tell lovely and sad stories from his homeland in Newfoundland. Having heard about some of these elements over the years, it was touching to read about them from a slightly different but aligned perspective. Best were Capelin Scull, Bread, Stars on the Water, and Under Silk, and The Hangover.
It was interesting to see the evolution of the poet, as he grows older and moves away from writing about historical events and more to writing about his own personal experiences, still with hints of the past that are so engrained on people from that region – their history written in their genes.
August 15, 2025
4.8/5.0
I came on in a few kitchens
where everything right went wrong
it wasn't love, it just kept me busy
until you came along.
aphrodisiacs are for amateurs
with more time than common sense.
I came on in a few kitchens
where everything right went wrong
it wasn't love, it just kept me busy
until you came along.
aphrodisiacs are for amateurs
with more time than common sense.
June 9, 2016
I think I should qualify this with I'm not really a poetry person. I did greatly enjoy a few poems in this book but overall it was not for me.
February 5, 2017
A nice read from one of my favourite authors. Poems about family, love, place. Perfect. I tend to ignore/skim over the grim bits. Life's hard enough. Sorry Michael!
April 27, 2017
I haven't read much poetry lately although I'm not sure why because I usually enjoy it. This was a great little book. It really gave me a feeling for the people and places of Newfoundland. It was so tender and touching at times, brutally honest and graphic at others. He really paints very vivid pictures for the reader. I'm going to read more poetry and more writing of Michael Crummey.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews