The Disturbance

Description

Disturbance is a book-length poem by Ivy Alvarez that chronicles a brutal murder case, based on fact, of a multiple-homicide, where an entire family was gunned down by the husband/father. The book features poems in a kaleidoscope of voices from all the characters involved. We first meet the family itself and witness the how the father's controlling attitude gradually escalates into violence. Then we get the aftermath: the authorities, police and neighbours, who all might have helped to prevent this tragedy. This is a very dark book, but a courageous one, ultimately about evil and its presence in our everyday lives. The fact that this family was relatively well-to-do, seemingly prosperous and well-connected, adds another layer of intrigue and mystery. Some graphic violence, but emphasis on character and motivation.

Author description

Ivy Alvarez is the author of Mortal (Washington, DC: Red Morning Press, 2006), her first poetry collection. Her poems appear in anthologies, journals and new media in many countries, including Poetry Wales, New Welsh Review, Roundyhouse and Red Poets, as well as Best Australian Poems (2009), A Face to Meet the Faces (University of Akron Press, 2012), The Guardian (online, 2012), Prairie Schooner (US, 2012) and Junctures (NZ, 2010), with individual poems translated into Russian, Spanish, Japanese and Korean. A MacDowell and Hawthornden Fellow thrice-shortlisted for Best Poem by fourW (Australia), both Literature Wales and the Australia Council for the Arts awarded grants towards the writing of her second collection, Disturbance. Born in the Philippines and raised in Australia, she became a British citizen in 2010, after living in Cardiff, Wales since 2004.