Ruin is one of the first poetry collections in the world to explore the epic tragedy of the Iraq War (2003 - 20??).Using four distinctive voices, and constructed almost as a thriller, Roberta Lowing's 55 poems re-create the devastating invasion and years of betrayal and heart-break - and moments of hope and illumination - endured by Iraqi civilians and American soldiers.Ruin pays tribute to the Twentieth Century's greatest humanist poets and resonates with the influences of Neruda, Levertov, Celan and more.This work is of our time for our time, a collection which expresses the anxieties and aspirations of all those who resist the dark forces shaking our world.Roberta Lowing's poems have appeared in Meanjin, Blue Dog and Overland. Her first novel, Notorious, a contemporary Gothic thriller, is published by Allen & Unwin. From 2006 to 2010, she organized and hosted the monthly PoetryUnLimitedPress (PULP) Poetry Readings & Open Microphone Competition in Glebe, Sydney. In 2007, PULP published the Ilumina Journal, a collection of poems and essays from Guest Poets such as Peter Boyle, Judith Beveridge, Stuart Rees and selected Open Mic poets. From 1986 to 2009, Roberta was film reviewer for Fairfax Media's The Sun-Herald and for much of that time, a contributor to The Sunday Age. In 2006, Fairfax Books published a collection of her reviews. Roberta completed her Master of Letters at the University of Sydney; she co-founded Sydney University's Writers Society and was co-editor of the Society's first Phoenix Journal. She also spent four years in community television, producing and directing 80 episodes of the environmental television show Green Seen for Sydney's Channel 31.