Escaping from the evils of the modern world into the vivid colours of a bird’s plumage, Michael Trussler’s 10:10 plunges into the mystery and horror of living at the beginning of the Anthropocene. How can there be both terrible violence and extraordinary beauty in the world? How can birdwatching coexist with genocide? How can nature be loved and destroyed all at once?

Trussler’s poetic voice is delightfully fluid: moments and images from movies, aesthetic theory, and animal life collide in each poem, sometimes in a single line. From lyrics to prose, high art to emails, Trussler sifts through the shards of society to seek refuge in the beauty and strangeness of words, the beguiling richness of images, the intensity of the natural world.

Michael Trussler’s work engages with the beauty and violence of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries from a neuro-divergent, fluid perspective. His writing encompasses several genres and modes of expression, ranging from the lyrical to the avant-garde. (An avid photographer, he sometimes blends Polaroid photography with text.) He is the author of ten books, including The History Forest, winner of the Saskatchewan Book Award for Poetry; the short fiction collection Encounters, winner of the Saskatchewan Book of the Year Award; and a memoir entitled The Sunday Book, which won the Saskatchewan Book Award in both the Non-Fiction and City of Regina categories. Deeply compelled by the natural world, Trussler hikes in the Canadian Rockies at every opportunity. He teaches English at the University of Regina. 10:10 is Michael Trussler’s seventh book of poetry.

Michael Trussler's profile page