Poetry
ISBN-13: 978-1-997508199
$21.95 CDN / $19.95 US | Trade Paperback
September 2025
Ritual, Interrupted is a poetic grimoire that looks to imagined worlds for self-discovery. Drawing on experiences with invisible illnesses like depressive disorder and anxiety, David Ly blurs the line between the real and the surreal, inviting readers into poems where the coping rituals of daily life are disrupted by mental health crises. A product of lived experience, Ritual, Interrupted reveals how vulnerability and imagination are radical acts of resistance that are necessary in a compassionate life and ultimately, for human survival.
Praise for Ritual Interrupted:
David Ly’s latest collection, Ritual, Interrupted, is a captivating and exquisite self-study. We enter the world of magic, spells, and augury and discover the ways in which one is imagined, remade, in flight, and miraculous. “You still think about yourself as a chain of terrifying events,” Ly writes, all the while revealing what it means to survive, to bloom, and to acknowledge our own breath. Ritual, Interrupted ultimately offers a lesson in compassion and in holding oneself together for a little while longer.—Gillian Sze, author of An Orange, A Syllable
The poems in Ritual, Interrupted shift and shimmer like a night garden, sending out echoes of possibility and transformation across our innermost landscapes. The effect is lasting and transformative, cementing Ly as both alchemist and artist.—Leah Horlick, author of Moldovan Hotel
It takes guts to know when to choose fantasy over reality, and in Ritual, Interrupted, David Ly not only evokes Sylvia Plath in his words and intensities, but slays his demons with a true poet’s heart.—Matthew Walsh, author of Terrarium
