[Disturbance] “…is a poetry collection published by Seren Books, where I used to work, and I think it’s fantastic. It’s narrative poetry that tells the story about a family and their community after the father of the family murders his wife and son and then kills himself. It’s so well executed, and so worth your time.” —Jess Gofton
Read the rest of Gofton’s Top Ten Tuesday.
“…Alvarez does more than give voice in this deceptively slim chapbook. She gives the starlets portals through which to enter our modern. She revives their haints … by telling their truths and each jump each famous beauty brings us deeper down a rabbit hole and as I read this book my house gave way with the strength and true of these women.”—Rebecca Loudon
“This poetry pamphlet/chapbook is totally eyeing up my jewellery! ‘Hollywood starlet’ by ivy alvarez. It’s really good! A short series of poems around 1950s female movie icons. I’m so jealous of this pamphlet/chapbook! Striking cover design too.” —eurotrashfreak
Also on https://www.instagram.com/p/BHA-_3njN8E/
The poem goes from recognizing Hepburn as the quick-witted “girl Friday,” the friend, not the lover, and ends in heartbreak; we feel her plain yearning at the end. Alvarez brings out the “Kathy” (vs Katherine) in us, in the wanting what we never seem to get, even though we already seemingly have it all.
—Jennifer MacBain-Stephens
Read the rest of the review, Flee to Fame: Leave the Chewed up Pieces at Home