The Interview

An interview with Ryon Maverick, Author of The Life and Death of Love

Emerging poet Ryon Maverick has transformed over a decade of diary entries into a striking debut collection. His book, *The Life and Death of Love*, is a raw and confessional exploration of relationships, told through the metaphor of the seasons. With his second book, *See You When I See You*, already in progress, Ryon continues to share his most personal experiences through poetry. We sat down with him to talk about the journey behind his first book, his creative process, and what lies ahead.

Q: Ryon, congratulations on your debut collection, The Life and Death of Love. For readers who haven’t picked it up yet, how would you describe the book in your own words?

Thank you. I’d describe it as an honest look at love in all its stages. It’s about the beginning, the intensity, the unravelling, and the ending. The book moves like the seasons, so there’s the warmth of spring and summer when love is alive and the cold of winter when it fades away. It’s personal because it’s based on over a decade of diary entries, but it speaks to anyone who has loved and lost. I’ve also been working on a follow-up called See You When I See You, which explores more personal parts of my life beyond relationships, but The Life and Death of Love is where it all began.

Q: Your writing began with diary entries. How did those private pages evolve into a book meant for others?

It was messy, honestly. I started by digging through old notebooks and diaries, some of them from when I was ten years old. Revisiting that past was tough because it meant reliving the happiness, the pain, the mistakes, and the growth all at once. At first, I thought I’d just copy things over and it would come together, but when I reread my first draft, I hated it. It felt random and without structure. I knew I needed something stronger to hold it all together.

Q: How did you move past that first draft?

I started looking for patterns. I underlined recurring words and themes, and I realized I kept coming back to the seasons. There were so many references to spring blooms, summer skies, autumn leaves, and winter branches. That was the breakthrough. I saw that I wasn’t just telling a love story, I was telling it through a cycle of life and death mapped onto the seasons. Once I had that, I started over.

Q: The collection is structured around the metaphor of the seasons. Why did that framing feel right to you?

Love feels very much like the seasons to me. There’s the spring when it feels new and full of promise, the summer when it is at its height, the autumn when it starts to fade, and the winter when it ends. That rhythm felt natural. Once I divided my work into the seasons, the whole narrative became clearer. Winter opened the book with the final moments of love and the loneliness that follows. Spring became a restart, full of promise. Summer was the heat and passion, the brightest moments of love. Autumn was the comfort but also the truth, fading back into winter again. That cycle made the story work.

Q: You’ve said you find inspiration on train journeys and in quiet moments. Why do you think those spaces bring out your best writing?

Trains have always been a place where I can think clearly. You’re moving, but you’re also still. There’s time to look out of the window, process everything, and let thoughts wander. A lot of my poems came from those journeys to and from past lovers. Those in-between spaces gave me the distance to be honest with myself.

Q: What was your writing routine like while working on the book?

Chaotic. For some reason, I’d always get creative urges at midnight or later. I’d cover the floor with papers and scribbled notes, fueled by coffee until the birds started singing. Some of my best work came out of those hours when I probably should have been sleeping. It was exhausting but also addictive.

Q: Did you struggle with writer’s block during the process?

Yes, a lot. I called it being haunted by ghosts because every page brought back the past. My poetry exists because of the people I loved, the best, and the worst of them. Revisiting that felt like being trapped in a cycle, reliving every mistake. It was draining, but it was also the only way through.

Q: Alongside the writing, you even began sketching. How did that fit into the process?

As I wrote, I started drawing pencil sketches inspired by the poems. At first, I wasn’t sure if they would become part of the book, but it felt like another path opening. It was a way of processing the emotions in a different form, through images as well as words.

Q: Your work has a raw, confessional tone. Was it difficult to be that vulnerable on the page?

Yes, it was. Sharing such personal writing is not easy. It means letting people see you in ways you might prefer to keep hidden. But I think the power of poetry is in its honesty. When you stop hiding and just tell the truth, that’s when people connect with it.

Q: What do you hope readers carry with them after finishing The Life and Death of Love?

I hope they feel understood. Love is complicated. It’s messy, painful, beautiful, and never simple. If someone reads my words and feels like their own experiences are being reflected back to them, then that’s what I want.

Q: Finally, what’s next for you? Do you see yourself continuing to write in this deeply autobiographical style?

Yes, I do. While I was creating The Life and Death of Love, I also kept a blog that became a space for more personal, life-based poetry. I wrote about the death of my parents, my coming out story, and so many moments that shaped me beyond just relationships. That blog has now become the foundation for my second book, See You When I See You. It will bring together those stories in poetry form and continue to explore love, grief, and identity in a very honest way.
Through his work, Ryon Maverick proves that poetry is not just about polished words but about truth and connection. By opening his journals and memories to the world, he invites readers to sit with love in its most vulnerable forms. With See You When I See You on the horizon, his voice is only just beginning to take shape in the literary world.