Book 38 of 2023
Summary
In this collection of poems by Michael Trussler the reader is submersed into a world both beautiful and bittersweet. It is a world where history and our climate worries meet on the cusp of our minds. There is the knowledge that the climate and history is changing and rising but we must reconcile them in our minds amongst our own personal history as well. It isn’t an easy reconciliation. How easy it is to perceive each thing as separate and existing in a completely different world than our own. There is no subject or thought that is off limits here as the reader addresses moments of war, school shootings, and those memories that haunt the back of our minds. Within these pages Michael Trussler directs our attention to accepting the unfathomable aspects of life along with moments of wonder equally.
Thoughts and Review
Every once in awhile I pick up a collection of poetry in my rainbow of new reads from the public library. Poetry and I have been at a stalemate all my life. It doesn’t matter how many times I read a poem I can never seem to find that moment, that others seem to find easily, of transcendence. Where the understanding just sticks with the reader has always been elusive. So, after all these years I force myself to read poetry in the hope that one day it will click. But here within the pages of Michael Trussler’s book I was pleasantly surprised as I found moments of awe and understanding.
Like the moments where we understand how an experience or encounter was perceived and how it should have gone differently. A bridging between our thoughts, perception, and the truth of what occurred. A marrying of each of those ideas into something more but also something less. What a mine field life is. But here you are not shamed for that idea but rather receive recognition that it is.
Within the pages here I discovered there is someone just as conflicted as I am and they have put those conflicts into words; beautiful words and stanzas.
Recomendation
I would recommend this collection of poetry for anyone who loves the art itself. I would give a special recommendation to anyone who is looking for a set of poems that are based in a different facet of life. A place where the natural confusion of the human condition can find a home. We as humans are destroying our own home but at the same time cannot stop shooting one another. We can grasp the beauty in a moment of kindness and yet so easily fall down the rabbit hole of self-neglect. Life is an oxymoron of which there is no escape. Here you find an escape of sorts as a quiet place is discovered to breath, think, and feel. Happy Reading!