Terror

by Toby Martínez de las Rivas

In Terror, Toby Martinez de las Rivas leads us on a high-wire act of verbal dexterity and inventive syntax in pursuit of a new kind of communication. Set against landscapes fallen just short of paradise, but which retain the possibility of redemption, these poems work intimately with the reader, interrogating us and encouraging us never to settle for inadequate answers. Formally adventurous and wide-ranging, Terror examines ideas of conflict, betrayal, sexual and divine love, history and hope, and holds each up to the light of our own fate and frailty, in search of a language which might console us, a language with which we might commune in our most private and fearful moments.

Terror is a thrilling and powerful debut.

Genres: Poetry

64 pages, Paperback

First published January 14, 2014

About the author

Toby Martínez de las Rivas (b. 1978) grew up in Somerset, England, before moving to the North East to study and work as an archaeologist. His collections are Terror (2014) and Black Sun (2018). He has won various awards, and currently lives in Córdoba, Spain.

Reviews

[Tommi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Abstruse to a self-indulgent level, yet so admirably different thanks to its obscure preoccupations with religion and ‘old’ art as though this came from some other time & space.

[Steven Critelli · Rating 4 out of 5]

As I read Toby Martinez de las Rivas' first collection, Terror, my own growing fear was that the refulgent fireworks of the language, which repeatedly bloom, blossom and die before the eye, have difficulties achieving a reflective, meaningful presence in the mind. Martinez wields his language like a lustrous sword of a visionary prophet, e.g., William Blake, but without the theo-philosophical metal that would make this book ultimately satisfying. In seeking confirmation of this impression, I read and totally agreed with  Sean O'Brien's review in the Guardian which makes this penetrating insight:

One problem for Terror, is that since the book is exclamatory and revelatory rather than argumentative, the effect of reference and allusion can be diminished if these elements don't seem to feed actively back into the event of the poem. "Plate VIII" from "Three Illustrations from Blake's Europe: A Prophecy" sees "a failed state, arming itself against consolation" and asks: "What does she want, this duchess, in the blue lustre / Of her robes, if not to tax you to death and eat you, / A ring of white pearls at her beating, heron's throat / As the cruel and oblatory smoke ascends in clouds?" The sinister and the grimly comic combine powerfully, but the subsequent list of "the full range of tragedy" that Martinez de las Rivas insists Blake prophesied, seems to discharge the poem's force to diminished effect: "Passchendaele and Omaha, / Torrejon de Ardoz, Guernica". The joining of Guernica with the 1936 massacre of Spanish nationalist prisoners by the republican authorities in Madrid makes sense, but the other pairing seems less persuasive, if it is accepted that, unlike Passchendaele, the slaughter on D-Day was not futile.

Martinez de las Rivas has talent in spades. He won the Eric Gregory award in 2005 and the Andrew Waterhouse award from New Writing North in 2008. Many poems in Terror have sections that you absolutely love and stand in awe of. At the same time, these same poems devolve to places you instinctively feel are off-course. While comparisons have been made with Geoffrey Hill's work, Hill's difficult poetry seems to travel by different vehicles. For example, in the "Jack Clem" section of "Triptych for the Disused Non-Conformist Chapel, Wildhern," a plaintive confessional narrative is introduced only to break down into so much metaphor and symbol that one can easily lose the thread within the labyrinth (or "the citadel" in this case). As O'Brien observes, "Martinez de las Rivas seems to write from a determination to make poetry a unified field where feeling, sense, music, love, the four last things and everything else are aspects of one another." My sense of this work is that repeated readings will take you places you hadn't seen in the prior readings -- you will enjoy each journey, but will never be satisfied where you end up. Terror is a cri de coeur couched in a schizophrenic tumble of poetry, prayers and imprecations, which is at its best in poems like its brilliant opening, "Twenty-One Prayers for Weak or Fabulous Things."

[K. Spicka · Rating 5 out of 5]

Something in my intuition told me that "Terror" was a collection worth reading to its conclusion. I was not immediately captured by it, and I have a tendency to abandon a book and move on when there are no "sparks." I would have missed much beauty if I had set it aside.

Martinez de las Rivas brings together a variety of form and tone, yet the work as a whole speaks with this passionate consistency. . .a voice I could almost hear reading the words to me by the end.

This collection is an excellent reminder that - in books and in life - the slow burn can be as satisfying as fireworks.

[Enya · Rating 1 out of 5]

I don't know if me not understanding this poetry is my fault or the poets' fault, but either way, I don't like it.

[Juliano · Rating 4 out of 5]

Terror, recommended to me by a poet, did not disappoint.

[Gavin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm from the US, so maybe my ears aren't attuned to this style of poetry as it reminds me of being too close to early Modernist writing, but I definitely enjoyed the book. Speaking of Moderns (well, at least one): it's as if TS Eliot got together with William Blake and they had a whale of a time creating this book full of Romantic echoes, "obscure" place names, even more obscure intertextual referencing while throwing in some formalistic play (I.e., Concrete Poetry, like the very last page) just to be sure and make this a PostPostPostModernist work to pay attention to...again, I'm not sure I'm completely sold on the thing, but I am very happy to see somebody pushing writing along exploratory paths in this manner. I'll be keeping my eye out for his next book for sure.