Twelve lines into the opening essay and I’m knee-deep in research. A flood of citations, a smattering of photography, and some sly mathematical symbology crisscross Michael Trussler’s Realia: Poetry, published by Radiant Press in 2024. Despite its academic tone, Realia “yammers” away with whimsy as well. Poems and lyric essays devastate and delight. I am not a linear reader, so I find it challenging to absorb this collection without exploring the concomitant voices in each footnote, reference, and allusion. Has Trussler assembled this chorus to drown out the “murmur” in the speaker’s head? Or to create a commotion in mine?

The book opens with three epigraphs that describe the word realia:

1. A word sometimes used philosophically to distinguish real things from the theories about
them
2. A contemplation of how someone stays attached to life while repudiating a world of bad
objects
3. A consideration of how poetry imitates to receive and replicate the real

The word appears often. In addition to the main title and epigraph, “Realia” is a section title and the title of two poems. Repetition produces weight. But the epigraphs also conjure a haze of imitation, contemplation, and theory. Realia holds abstract discussions about “hefty things.”

Art, history, climate catastrophe, mental illness: a few “hefty things” broached in this collection. And Auschwitz-Birkenau. Any student of Dr. Michael Trussler knows many trains of discussion inevitably arrive here. The section titled “Realia” opens with this question from British novelist and journalist Hari Kunzru: “Who has to be taken away to the camps for it to start feeling real to ordinary people?” Alternatively, who’s wafting through the corporeal lessons of history and still not feeling connected?

Realia’s opening essay “When Eyelids” examines two works of art: Caspar David Friedrich’s The Monk by the Sea and Kevin Carter’s photograph of a starving child in Sudan, nearly collapsed on the ground and being observed by a nearby vulture. Here, Trussler engages in ekphrasis, another form of realia. Ekphrasis occurs when during the imaginative act of narrating and reflecting on the action depicted by a piece of art, the poet amplifies and expands its meaning. So, when Trussler asks: “How does art make the mind move toward an emotion like desolation, but also recoil from it” he produces amplification. And for those still not listening, his essay title cranks up the volume. “When Eyelids” evokes an itchy, scratchy excision. Because once your eyelids have been “clipped away,” you’ll have no choice but to pay attention.

Despite the devastating tone of the opening, Trussler’s Realia brims with delight. The horrors of “hefty things” become approachable when paired with intense lyricism. For example, a phrase like “Hullaballoo Sign Repair” creates levity. It’s an unexpected, multi-syllabic, fun-to-say word combination. The phrase even feels comedic—a cartoon character in cap and coveralls repairing signs along a road. And that extra “l” in “baloo” could be a copyediting oversight, but I believe it evokes a balloon from which the final letter “n” has floated away. When the duality of realia reappears, I recall that “Hullabaloo” means a din or violent disturbance; that Trussler’s “Sign” may be semiotic; and I am grounded again in critical discourse.

Trussler is tricky with vocabulary placement. Words with similar properties reside near one another, creating potential false echoes of meaning. For example, “Ars Poetica” contains the lines “people are ghost-mushrooms speaking / complex sentence patterns via electrical impulses.” Ghost-mushrooms are bioluminescent; they glow from within. On the facing page “The Portable Mystic” opens with “An inflorescence of decades.” The word “inflorescence” also sounds lit from within. But it’s not. Same with “Shambolic” and “shaman.” My ear says these words could be related; the dictionary confirms otherwise. Trussler’s language lures me in one direction, until I realize I’m going the wrong way. But is there a wrong way to read poetry? Why not sing along with compound expressions like “baby-talk” “spool-y-spin” and “cute money- mingling.” They provide a delightful counterpoint to the complex academic tone of this collection. Realia sometimes feels like a fun house, a hall of mirrors. I think carnival rather than airport when reading “The talkative / and unraveling / brain’s / a baggage carousel.” “The Dark Barking” warns don’t skim-read, or you may hear a dog barking. But if it’s a large, dark black dog resembling mental illness, then you probably heard right. Mental and emotional “baggage” persist throughout Realia. But lyricism surprises these heavy conversations and keeps them circling like calliope music in my head.

Realia’s poetry and prose include multiple formatting choices. Sometimes, I can’t decide which direction to go. Double-headed arrows direct my eye back and forth, and one poem concludes with an arrow pointing back into its final stanza (←). The writing is dense, but there’s also a lot of white space in which to swim around. Readers don’t have to dive into the multiple references and citations, but surely the poet encourages this possibility by building such marvellous portals.

Loop back now to Trussler’s opening essay which states: “The syntax of images twists, and there are disturbing, connecting threads everywhere.” Michael Trussler can’t not connect. He connects laterally between texts every time he descends vertically through one. This is how he reads; it is also how he teaches. The contents of Realia are not “scattershot,” but they do require an active reader. And though the admission “I Can’t Remember What I Came Here to / say. I write this with the hand of a mannequin I found” suggests we might be dealing with an unreliable speaker I assure you this poet is trustworthy. As a writer or as a teacher, Michael Trussler will not hold your hand. But he will provide what’s necessary to make it through. Whether you choose to form meaningful connections is then up to you.