Don Paterson

Donald Paterson (born 1963 in Dundee<ref name="poetry foundation">Template:Cite web</ref>) is a Scottish poet, writer and musician. His work has won several awards, including the Forward Poetry Prize, the T. S. Eliot Prize and the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize. He was recipient of the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry 2009.

Career

Paterson won an Eric Gregory Award in 1990 and his poem "A Private Bottling" won the Arvon Foundation International Poetry Competition in 1993.<ref name="Scottish Poetry Library">Template:Cite web</ref> He was included on the list of 20 poets chosen for the Poetry Society's 1994 "New Generation Poets" promotion.<ref name="Scottish Poetry Library"/> In 2002, he was awarded a Scottish Arts Council Creative Scotland Award.<ref name="poetry foundation"/>

His first collection of poetry, Nil Nil (1993), won the Forward Poetry Prize for Best First Collection. God's Gift to Women (1997) won the T. S. Eliot Prize and the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize. The Eyes, adaptations of the work of Spanish poet Antonio Machado (1875–1939), was published in 1999. He is the editor of 101 Sonnets: From Shakespeare to Heaney (1999) and of Last Words: New Poetry for the New Century (1999) with Jo Shapcott. Paterson's collection of poems Landing Light (2003) won both the 2003 T. S. Eliot Prize and the 2003 Whitbread Poetry Award.<ref name=Picador>Template:Cite web</ref> He has also published three collections of aphorisms, The Book of Shadows (2004), The Blind Eye (2007) and Best Thought, Worst Thought (2008). Orpheus, his version of Rilke's Die Sonette an Orpheus, was published in 2006.<ref name="poetry foundation" />

Paterson teaches in the school of English at the University of St Andrews and was the poetry editor for London publishers Picador for more than 25 years.<ref name=Picador/> An accomplished jazz guitarist, he works solo and for ten years ran the jazz-folk ensemble Lammas with Tim Garland.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In 2012, Paterson wrote an open letter in The Herald criticising Scotland's arts funding council Creative Scotland.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In 2012–2013, he was the Weidenfeld Visiting professor of European Comparative Literature in St Anne's College, Oxford.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Paterson's memoir Toy Fights: A Boyhood was published Faber & Faber in January 2023.

Honours and awards

He was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2008 Birthday Honours.<ref>Template:London Gazette</ref> He was awarded the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry 2009.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2004.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In 2015, Paterson was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Bibliography

Poetry

Collections

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• Template:Cite book (winner of Forward Poetry Prize)
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• Template:Cite book (shortlisted for the 2016 Griffin Poetry Prize)
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He also has contributed to

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Anthologies

• 101 Sonnets, 1999
• Last Words, 1999, with (Jo Shapcott)
• Robert Burns, poems selected by Don Paterson, 2001
• New British Poetry with Charles Simic, Graywolf Press, 2004, Template:ISBN

List of poems

Title	Year	First published	Reprinted/collected
"Wave"	2014	The New Yorker<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>

Plays

• The Land of Cakes (with Gordon McPherson) (2001)
• A'body's Aberdee (2001)

Radio drama

• Kailyard Blues (1999)
• Ringing the Changes (1999) with (Jo Shapcott)
• The Aberdee Brief (2000)
• The Latecomers (2001)

Aphorisms

• The Book of Shadows Picador, 2004, Template:ISBN
• The Blind Eye (2007)
• Best Thought, Worst Thought (2008)

Criticism

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• Smith: A Reader's Guide to the Poetry of Michael Donaghy (2014)
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Critical studies and reviews of Paterson's work

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External links

• Poet's official website
• "Private Enterprise for the Public Good" John Stammers interviews Don Paterson. No 12 - Spring 1998 Magma, via Poetry Magazines
• Paterson profile at Poetry Foundation
• Profile at Scottish Poetry Library
• Biography and bibliography at British Council Contemporary Writers site
• Biography, poetry excerpts from Griffin Poetry Prize website