The Writers of Wales Database

ALVAREZ, IVY

Email: ivyalvarez@gmail.com
Websites: http://redmorningpress.com and http://ivyalvarez.com
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Ivy Alvarez is the author of Mortal (Red Morning Press, 2006). Her poetry is featured in anthologies, journals and new media in many countries, with individual poems translated into Russian, Spanish, Japanese and Korean, and has delivered poetry and professional development workshops in the UK and Australia.

The recipient of numerous awards, prizes and residencies, she received funding towards the writing of her second book of poems from Academi and the Australia Council of the Arts. In 2011, she was invited to give readings in Seoul, Korea, as part of the Oz-Ko Poetry Tour.

Fundación Valparaíso invited her to a writing residency in Spain in 2008. She was also a writer-in-residence at the Booranga Writers Centre in Wagga Wagga, New South Wales later that year. In 2006, Wales Arts International awarded her a grant to travel to Sydney, Australia and participate in The Red Room Company’s ‘The Poetry Picture Show’. In 2005, she received fellowships from MacDowell Colony (USA) and Hawthornden Castle (UK). In 2004, she accepted an Arvon Foundation bursary and the honour of Special Poetry Guest to Dublin’s Trinity College/Florida International University poetry summer program. That year, her poem ‘earth’ was included in the Australian/Pacific Region Literacy Placement Test for Scholarships, initially selected from Moorilla Mosaic: Contemporary Tasmanian Writing.

She is the series editor for The Private Press's poetry chapbook anthologies on David Lynch's works, which includes A Slice of Cherry Pie, inspired by his TV show, Twin Peaks, and We Don't Stop Here, on the Lynch film Mulholland Drive.

She has been Artist in Residence for SBS, Australia’s acclaimed TV/radio network, and a guest of many writing festivals, including the National Young Writers Festival in Newcastle, Sydney. Her poetry has also been featured on audio compilations 'FlightPaths', 'Going Down Swinging' and 'You Have Been Chosen', and broadcast on radio and online podcasts.

In addition to her poetry, she writes plays, articles, and reviews, and has served on the editorial board of several journals, including Cordite Poetry Review. Born in the Philippines, Ivy Alvarez grew up in Tasmania, Australia. She has lived in Cardiff since 2004, after six months in Scotland and a year in the Republic of Ireland.

Selected Publications:
Food for Humans (Slow Joe Crow Press, 2002)
catalogue: life as tableware (The Private Press, 2004)
what’s wrong (The Private Press, 2004)
Mortal (Red Morning Press, 2006)


Contributed to:
Moorilla Mosaic (contributor) (Bumble-bee Press, 2001)
Father Poems (contributor) (Anvil Publishing, 2004)
The First Hay(na)ku Anthology (contributor) (Meritage Press / xPress(ed), 2005)
OBAN 06 (contributor) (NZ Electronic Poetry Centre, 2006)
NaPoWriMo (contributor) (Big Game Books, 2006)
From the Garden of the Gods (contributor) (Sun Rising Press, 2006)
A Slice of Cherry Pie (editor) (The Private Press / Half Empty/Half Full, 2006)
The Musculature of Small Birds (contributor) (Shadowbox Press, 2007)
Brilliant Coroners (contributor) (Phoenicia Publishing imprint, 2007)
What is Our Sex? (contributor) (Vignette Press, 2007)
We Don’t Stop Here (editor) (The Private Press, 2008)
Letters to the World: Women Poets Anthology (contributor) (Red Hen Press, 2008)
Best Australian Poems (contributor) (Black Inc, 2009)
Hair (contributor) (Trunk, 2009)
The Chained Hay(na)ku Project (co-editor) (Meritage Press, 2010)
Voice of Women in Wales (contributor) (Wales Women's National Coalition, 2010)
Red Leaves / I #001 (contributor) (A Cowboy Named Molasses Publishing, 2010)
Fire On Her Tongue (contributor) (Two Sylvias Press, 2011)
In Their Cups (contributor) (Melbourne Poets Union, 2011)
A Face to Meet the Faces (contributor) (University of Akron Press, 2012)

Mortal (Red Morning Press, 2006)

"…Sharpness of perception, whether of taste, eye or ear, is what defines this tightly written collection. The sharpnesses of the heart as mothers and daughters strain to find continuity, the sharpnesses of a sometimes painful, sometimes delightful present, and the deep poignancies of memory, are incised across these poems. Throughout, Ivy Alvarez’s control of tone and subtle range of voices crosses continents and generations. Here’s a striking new voice to accompany us from Hades to Tasmania, from myth to mother…"

W.N. Herbert, author of Bad Shaman Blues