The History Forestby Michael TrusslerPublished by University of Regina PressReview by Shelley A. Leedahl$19.95 ISBN 9780889778948 Books by multi-genre writer and University of Regina professor of English Michael Trussler make a mark. Take The Sunday Book, a nonfiction title that garnered two awards in the 2023 Saskatchewan Book Awards. Take The History Forest, the poetry collection for which Trussler earned the Poetry Award in the same provincial competition. An admirable trifecta. I read the latter slowly, and twice: it’s dense, philosophical, apocalyptic, and often surreal, and I didn’t always know how to navigate it—something like walking through a forest under the cape of night. To read Trussler is to have one’s mind stretched; I even remembered things I’d forgotten, ie: The Twinkie Defence. This dexterous poet quotes myriad poets and writers; references artworks and philosophers; and had me regularly Googling (ie: Panpyschism; Ordovician; ekistics; hand-wrestler Candy Pain; Zen monk, Kenkō). Even the line and stanza breaks kept me guessing in this experimental book. In Trussler’s poetic universe, a strong sense of humanity’s vulnerability pervades—and the sturdy conviction that we’ve doomed ourselves. There’s a “gasoline haze/above the playground” and “peripatetic plastic straws/washed up on the sand,” will “last far longer than…

The New Wascana Anthology Edited by Medrie Purdham and Michael Trussler Published by University of Regina Press Review by Shelley A. Leedahl $49.95 ISBN 978-0-88977 The beauty of an anthology – and particularly a multi-genre example, like the The New Wascana Anthology, is that readers can sample from a veritable banquet of hand-picked work. This book represents a “best of” combination of two earlier “Wascana” anthologies (poetry and short fiction), plus other important and entertaining work. Editors Medrie Purdham and Michael Trussler’s intent was “to preserve the strengths of the earlier anthologies” and “add a variety of new selections to make a textbook that would be especially amenable to the twenty-first-century classroom.” Within these 551 pages you’ll discover popular works from the canon (American, British, and Canadian) sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with pieces by contemporary Canadians, including many of Saskatchewan’s finest (current or former residents), including Lorna Crozier, Patrick Lane, Gerald Hill, Karen Solie, and newcomer Cassidy McFadzean, b. 1989. You may find yourself remembering poetic lines from Shakespeare, Wordsworth or Dickinson, and then be pleased to shake the metaphorical hand of contemporary short story writers like Eden Robinson, Dianne Warren, Rohinton Mistry, Alexander MacLeod (his “Miracle Mile” is placed next to…

A Homemade Life by Michael Trussler Published by JackPine Press Review by Kris Brandhagen Price: $35 ISBN: Gorgeous, personal, drawing up memories that conjure loss, Michael Trussler’s A Homemade Life is comprised of black and white photos and text, each a postcard unit to be rearranged on the whim of the reader. Presented in a box with a clear cover the handmade, limited edition book looks just like a package of postcards. Trussler proves himself to be well versed in the conventions of photography. The title image is a beach scene with a woman, made headless by the framing of the photograph, holding onto a leashed dog in the grassy foreground while behind them is a couple sunning themselves on lawn chairs in the sandy middle ground. The edge of a body of water is visible in the background. Intriguingly, all the figures are situated facing the photographer and not, as one might normally expect, the water. In almost perfect thirds, and with lots of windy motion, it is a successful photographic composition and a stunning hook. About twelve postcard pages in, just as I was beginning to wonder if there was a textual element to this book, the poetry…