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Poetry in Motion: Michael Trussler + Realia
Three-time Saskatchewan-Book-Award winner Michael Trussler joins us to read two poems from his latest collection Realia (Radiant Press). Engaging in a variety of forms—lyric-documentary, autobiographical mini-essay, long poems, miniaturist poetry, surreal collage and photography—Realia asks big and small ethical questions (what does it mean to see? go internet surfing?) while maintaining an eye on our contemporary moment.
Michael Trussler’s new collection of poetry, Realia, expands and confuses the traditional lyric poem. Rather than using an essentially singular voice to express a dominant emotion or situation as most lyric poems do, these poems try to “channel” various voices of the present. A given poem can waver between the voices of children asking questions to a neurodivergent adult to technology itself talking. This collection also experiments with form—prose poems become mini-essays that turn back into verse. The Romantic paintings of Caspar David Friedrich talk to true crime documentaries. Surveillance technology as seascape. Meanwhile, space trash crashes into the gentleness of colours and Marcel Duchamp gets urgent about sacrificing butterflies alive in winter.
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Michael Trussler lives in Regina, Saskatchewan. He writes poetry and creative non-fiction. Three time winner of the Saskatchewan Book Award, Trussler’s work has appeared in Canadian and American journals and has been included in domestic and international anthologies. Also a photographer, Trussler has a keen interest in the visual arts and is neuro-divergent. He teaches English at the University of Regina.
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