Floodmeadow

De Las Rivas, Toby Martinez

ISBN 10: 0571376436 / ISBN 13: 9780571376438

Published by Faber & Faber, 2023

Seller Inventory # 9780571376438

Synopsis:

Floodmeadow draws us into a seething pastoral where lightning threatens and thunder gathers, pylons and powerlines hum, and steel-framed gates sing out into the wind.

In these incantatory pieces, everything is present at once. The landscape, teetering on apocalypse, is characterised by collision and disintegration. Among fragments of memory and history are meticulously journaled observations of the natural world: the moorhen who 'with exaggerated delicacy steps / free of the reedbeds'; the dragonfly that 'pushes itself through the armour / of its body' to be born. Human relations are fleeting and vulnerable, appearing in the impression of a wedding or the recurring moments captured between a father and son, who make between them delicate balsawood constructions, which - as the poems do themselves - take flight in the turmoil, ecstatic one moment, plunged into darkness the next. This is a visionary collection that invokes other times, dimensions and soundscapes to tell out some word of beauty and abundance in the here and now.

About the Author: Toby Martinez de las Rivas' publications include three full collections from Faber & Faber. Black Sun (2018) was shortlisted for the Forward Poetry Prize for Best Collection. Terror (2014) was shortlisted for The Portico prize and Michael Marks award. His most recent book is Floodmeadow (2023). His work is included in Penguin Modern Poets 7 (Penguin, 2018) with Geoffrey Hill and Rowan Evans.

Bibliographic Details

Title: Floodmeadow
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Publication Date: 2023
Binding: Soft cover
Condition: New