Title: Listening for the Line: An Interview with Ryan Di Francesco

In a poetic landscape that resists containment, Ryan Di Francesco writes with a voice that is fluid, restless, and deeply attuned to the rhythms of everyday life. As a writer, teacher, and editor-in-chief of Shadow and Sax, his work moves between brevity and expansiveness, surreal imagery and raw emotional clarity. Influenced by poets like Federico García Lorca, Jack Spicer, Pierre Reverdy, and Nicanor Parra, Di Francesco embraces an ever-evolving practice; it's one that treats writing not as a task, but as a continuous state of being. In this conversation, he reflects on process, poetic instinct, and the quiet persistence of the mundane.

Q: How would you describe your poetic voice right now, and what has shaped it most recently?

A: It really depends on my state of mind. Lately, I’ve been exploring brevity—image-based, surreal experimentation. But I love raw poetry too. I like moving between modes and not staying in one lane. The mind is fluid. The stream of consciousness speaks as it does—sometimes that’s two pages, sometimes four lines.

Q: What themes or questions keep returning in your work?

A: The mundane. Surviving within the mundane. 

Q: Can you walk us through your writing process?

A: It never ends. It never turns off. Living is the process.

Q: How do you know when a poem is “done,” or at least ready to be shared?

A: I listen to the voice. If it keeps coming back, I know it isn’t done.

I don’t share my work on social media. I submit to journals. Even then, I sometimes revise after submitting. I’ll think it’s done, and then the voice rises again. Or I’ll notice something months later—a line break, a word choice—that doesn’t suit the poem.

Q: Who are some poets or artists that have influenced your work, and how do those influences show up on the page?

A: Lorca, Spicer, Reverdy, Parra, among many others. I love the plainspoken rawness of Parra’s antipoetry. I think antipoetry is the most honest version of poetry. It doesn’t posture with language or decorate lines for poetry’s sake. It isn’t trying to impress. It does the opposite, deliberately. The speaker doesn’t run away from the truth. They don’t try to say, look, I can write. I don’t really enjoy writing that is trying hard to be writing.

And Lorca, Spicer, and Reverdy—poets who use jagged lines and surrealism, who bend images with brevity or prose—will always inspire me to find the image between A and Z.

Q: How does your lived experience inform your poetry?

A: I think it’s impossible for it not to.

It starts the second I wake up and carries through the day.

Q: As Editor-in-Chief of Shadow and Sax, how does working closely with other writers shape or challenge your own creative practice?

A: I love building a home for underdog writers and artists.

There are so many talented people who can’t break through the usual gates, but their voices deserve to be heard. Their art deserves to be seen.

It’s an honour, honestly.

People trust me with something very personal, and I don’t take that lightly.

Q: Why are art and its history important?

A: I am hopeful that one day we will learn from our history, but I remain skeptical, sadly.

I do believe art is history’s gift to the future, though.

Q: Is there anything you're working on right now that you'd like to share?

A: I’m never not working. I’m never not writing.

If you know how to stop, let me know.

For Ryan Di Francesco, poetry is not something that begins or ends, it is something lived. Whether shaping his own work or cultivating space for others through Shadow and Sax, his approach is grounded in care, attentiveness, and a deep respect for the voices that often go unheard. His reflections remind us that art is both an inheritance and an offering, shaped by history yet always reaching forward. In honoring the fluidity of thought and the persistence of voice, Di Francesco invites us to listen more closely—not just to poetry, but to the ongoing process of living that makes it possible.

How to keep up with Ryan: 

shadowandsax.com

Instagram: @ryan_difrancesco

BIO: Ryan Di Francesco (he/him) is a Canadian writer, teacher, and editor based in Ontario. His journalistic work has appeared in The Toronto Star, and his poetry and fiction are published or forthcoming in Acta Victoriana, Pacific Review, MIDLVLMAG, Soliloquies Anthology, Pinhole Poetry, and elsewhere. He is the Editor-in-Chief of Shadow and Sax, an independent literary and arts press. His chapbooks include Mirage of Burning Things (Parlyaree Press), Skeleton Mine Disaster (Bottlecap Press), and The Paper Hound and Canadian Classic (Alien Buddha Press). His Jack Spicer–inspired collection Along Tongues Full of Time is forthcoming with Ethel Zine & Micro Press, and his full-length poetry collection Let the Dogs Have It is forthcoming with Parlyaree Press. He was shortlisted for the Rhonda Gail Williford Poetry Prize.