In Realia , Michael Trussler grapples with the black fire of mental illness, revels in the joyinherent to colours, and probes what it means to be alive at the beginning of theAnthropocene. Perfectly clear, perfectly opaque, Trussler's poetry implodes the lyric to channelthe bright disintegration of our contemporary moment. These are poems requiring Jonah andLittle Red Riding Hood to change places if we are to measure diagnostically homeless oceans, surveillance capitalism, and the vulnerable human body. Shambolic and precise, these poemsare unskinned. Including a mini-essay on the author's OCD and another on how a Caspar DavidFriedrich painting is an uncanny neighbour to ourselves, Realia is fluent in mitochondrialpsychology and the diaries of Katherine Mansfield. It also offers lessons in extinct Barbie Dollarrangement.