Notes From The Passenger

Notes from the Passenger

Sonically vivid, as empire and climate fall into catastrophe, these poems open portals where the living and the dead find one another in new communication From Shelley Memorial Award Winner Gillian Conoley, Notes from the Passenger reminds us how with increased gun violence, war, plague, white supremacy, we are no longer "in control." We are no longer drivers; we are passengers--destination unknown. Arriving like missives from a bardic journey, these poems explore how system collapse has led to a new space-time continuum. As our perception/projection of world shifts in the quotidian contemporary and historical--even ancient--time, these cinematic linguistically vibrant poems seek new order beyond division, within catastrophe and joy, written on the edge of being.

Research Notes

San Francisco Ship Passenger Lists

In his latest book, genealogist David Dobson has compiled a list of Scottish surnames of the estimated 150,000 Scots who settled in the America colonies. Many of the same surnames, of course, apply to the even greater number of Scots-Irish colonists whose forebears had originated in Scotland before re-settling in the province of Ulster.The Scottish Surnames of Colonial America attempts to identify Scottish names, provide explanations of their meaning and significance, give examples, and where applicable, name the clan to which the family is linked. In all, Mr. Dobson identifies about 1,000 Scottish surnames and their derivatives and also mentions one or more actual Scottish North Americans who bore that name before 1776.