Mythical Man

In David Ly's debut poetry collection Mythical Man, he builds, and then tears down, an army of men to explore personhood in the 21st century. Tenderness, toxic masculinity, nuances of queer love, and questions of race and identity mix in Ly’s poetry, casting a spell that enters like “a warm tongue on a first date.” He challenges mainstream ideas of male beauty, gay sex, and Asian identity with fairytale themes, showing how racism still pervades in queer spaces. As a response to this, instead of the narrator asking "what about me?" in these poems, Mythical Man poses the question "what will I become?"