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“Hello, my name is Ivy Alvarez. I’ll be reading a poem titled ‘Hold’, which was published by the Guardian (UK), online, for their Poetry Workshop section, on the 4th of November, 2011. (Photograph by Tasmanian photographer Rachael Duncan)
Hold
I have a sorrowing the size of a lump of coal.
One day I will tender it. I mean tinder it.
I mean light it up in my hands, holding on
even as it burns me. My palms will blister,
water, bleed, heal, scar over. I will take another
lump and light it again. Eventually, palms
will be foot soles that have journeyed across
the backs of river rocks. For now, let me learn
to hold on to something. I mean sorrowing.
My sorrowings. Your sorrowings.
ABOUT IVY ALVAREZ:
Ivy Alvarez is the author of Mortal (Washington, DC: Red Morning Press, 2006) and three chapbooks, with a second full-length collection coming soon. A recipient of writing residencies from MacDowell Colony, Hawthornden Castle and Fundación Valparaiso, her poems appear in journals and anthologies in many countries and online. Several have been translated into Russian, Spanish, Japanese and Korean.
A visiting lecturer at the University of Chester in 2010, she has also been a featured reader for Worcester College (Oxford) and Winchester University. Born in the Philippines and raised in Australia, she has lived in Wales, UK since 2004.
“I was awarded a 2001 Varuna Writers Centre Development Forum for Work in Progress Grant, working with Deb Westbury, who provided feedback on an early manuscript version of my first book, Mortal.
My memories of my one visit to Varuna have that gold tint of nostalgia. I remember the train trip up to the Blue Mountains. The magnolia tree near the centre with its crushed flowers littering the path. Sheila’s wonderful cooking that made me feel, in some essential way, valued. Sharing my work and listening to the other poets there with me. How intense that experience was, and how valuable.” Ivy Alvarez
PUBLICATIONS:
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)
Anthologies:
Moorilla Mosaic (Hobart, Tasmania: Bumble-bee Press, 2001)
Father Poems (Manila: Anvil Publishing, 2004)
The First Hay(na)ku Anthology (USA & Finland: Meritage Press / xPress(ed), 2005)
OBAN 06 (NZ Electronic Poetry Centre, 2006)
NaPoWriMo (Washington, DC: Big Game Books, 2006)
A Slice of Cherry Pie (editor) (Wales & USA: The Private Press / Half Empty/Half Full, 2006)
The Musculature of Small Birds (USA: Shadowbox Press, 2007)
Brilliant Coroners (Canada: Phoenicia Publishing imprint, 2007)
What is Our Sex? (Melbourne: Vignette Press, 2007)
We Don’t Stop Here (editor) (Wales: The Private Press, 2008)
Letters to the World: Women Poets Anthology (USA: Red Hen Press, 2008)
Best Australian Poems (Melbourne: Black Inc, 2009)
Hair (Sydney: Trunk, 2009)
Chained Hay(na)ku Project, ed. (USA: Meritage Press, 2010)
Voice of Women Wales (Wales Women’s National Coalition, 2010)
Fire On Her Tongue (Two Sylvias Press, 2011)
In Their Cups (Melbourne Poets Union, 2011)
A Face to Meet the Faces (University of Akron Press, 2012)
CONTACT:
Varuna has been funded by the Australia Council to produce a Varuna Writer-a-Day “app”. When we have recorded 365 writers the app will be made available via the iTunes store. In the meantime, if you subscribe to this free blog, you can receive a daily reading delivered to your email inbox which can also be directed to your mobile phone.
To find out more about Varuna’s programs, residencies, events and support services for writers click here.
Okay that’s today’s ‘I-wish-I-had-said-that’ moment taken care of.
M
__________
Marie Marshall
writer/poet/editor/blogger
Scotland
http://kvennarad.wordpress.com
This is simply beautiful – the poem and the reading, both. Thank you.
Thank you so much taking the time to comment, Marie and Meg!
And special thanks to Varuna for the invitation to share my work here.
Beautiful. Straight to the heart. To the heart of pain – the sorrow. Now written and read, made beautiful. Thank you. The poet in me is wide awake, not alone, so full of holding sorrow.
Ivy, I just love your poem, thank you.
Feeling the love all the way to here in Cardiff! Thank you, Katherine and Clare.
Hello Ivy,
Your reading proved just how special and unique it is when the author reads their own work. I loved the pauses and pace of your reading, they added such effect to the emotional content of the work
Thank Ivy
Hello, Jo! Thank you so much for your insights into my reading. And I agree with you — hearing any author read their own work is one of my favourite things, too. Also pleased to see we’re sharing space in the latest issue of fourW. Congratulations on your work!
I Think that blog, “Writer-a-Day: Ivy Alvarez
reading Hold Varuna, The Writers House Blog” was fantastic!
Icould not agree together with u even more! Finally seems like I reallystumbled upon a webpage
well worth reading. Regards, Jeannette