Six Questions with David Ly

ALL LIT UP: What first sparked the idea for your book, Ritual, Interrupted? 

DAVID LY: It was a curiosity to see if I could write about what it’s like living with my depression and anxiety. I knew my past works have threads of my experience with such invisible illnesses, but I wondered what would it be (feel) like to pull them to the forefront a bit more. And I wanted to know what kind of poetry would come out from talking about mental illness through imagery that is dark, yet comforting for me to imagine.

ALU: How does your most recent work compare to your previous books?

DAVID: Ritual, Interrupted indulges in my love for dark imagery, feelings, and motifs that weren’t necessarily in my previous works in a large capacity. Dark as they may be, there are threads of hope and light in the poems, though, which is how the book resonates with Dream of Me as Water and Mythical Man. I like presenting ideas and themes that may be scary at first, and sit with them for a few drafts of a poem to see what levity, insights, or imagery I can draw from them to make the overwhelming feelings a bit easier to hold.

ALU: What surprised you most while working on your book?

DAVID: The number of poems that ended up being written in second- and third-person was quite unexpected. It was never an intentional choice to do so. I think, because some of the subject matter was uncomfortable and intense for me to sit with, that those perspectives made writing them feel lighter—not necessarily easier, but not as overwhelming. It was like I maybe defaulted to using “you” and “he” to remove myself a bit from the poems? The poems “World Eater,” “Suffocation Spell,” and “Narrative Attempt” are a few of my favourites written in this tense.

I’m glad those poems turned out like that. I think it gives the experience of reading the book a different kind of texture, that’s a bit more invocative, than my other poetry collections.

ALU: How did your editor help shape the book? 

DAVID: Over the years, Jim Johnstone and I have developed a really fantastic author-editor relationship. He really sees what I’m trying to do with new poems, while also retaining the familiar heartbeat I like my poems to have.

When it came to Ritual, Interrupted, it was a collection that I struggled with the most. There were many poems, like “The Nightmare, Reversed” where I could never get it to read, feel, and look right. No matter how much I edited or re-wrote it, it never felt right. Jim came in and just saw what I could not; he zeroed-in on the narrative and cut away extra side-thoughts and words.

And while the three sections of the book (Summon, Sever, and Resurrect) came quite easily to me, Jim’s keen eye helped me organize which poems went in each section, and which poems to remove from the book entirely. All of his advice and reasoning help pull me through my own thoughts, and we ended up shaping it into the true grimoire I wanted it to be.

ALU: If your book had a soundtrack, what might be on it?

DAVID: Florence + the Machine would lead the Ritual, Interrupted soundtrack with: “Cosmic Love,” “Sympathy Magic,” “Hunger,” and “Seven Devils”. There are so many of Florence + The Machine’s songs I could put on Ritual, Interrupted’s soundtrack. Music is such a heavy influence on my writing; so much so that each of my collections has at least one piece written after a singer. In this collection, there are two: “Bring me The Beast, Live” (written after a cancelled Lady Gaga concert I was supposed to attend) and “Florence” (written as a little love letter to how her music keeps me grounded).

Aside from Florence’s music, the book’s soundtrack would be followed by Paris Paloma’s song “The Warmth,” then Lord Huron’s “The Yawning Grave.” I love a great witchy song.