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Don Paterson was born in Dundee, Scotland in 1963. He is the author of sixteen books of poetry, aphorism, criticism, and poetic theory. His previous poetry collections include Nil NilGod’s Gift to WomenLanding Light, and Rain. He has also published translations of Antonio Machado and Rainer Maria Rilke. His poetry has won many awards, including the Whitbread Poetry Prize, the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, the Costa Poetry Award, and all three Forward Prizes; he is currently the only poet to have won the T.S. Eliot Prize twice. He received the OBE in 2008 and the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry in 2010. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, the English Association, and the Royal Society of Edinburgh. He is Professor Emeritus at the University of St Andrews and for twenty-five years was Poetry Editor at Picador Macmillan. Paterson also has pursued a dual career as a jazz guitarist. He lives in Edinburgh.

40 Sonnets 2016 Shortlist

Faber & Faber, UK

Judges’ Citation

About half the poems in Don Paterson’s latest book are strict sonnets and half are wild or disobedient sonnets (four beats to a line, one word to a line, one word to a whole poem or sometimes just plain prose) but these variants of one form work together to make a fascinating and sustained piece of music, like a fugue.

About half the poems in Don Paterson’s latest book are strict sonnets and half are wild or disobedient sonnets (four beats to a line, one word to a line, one word to a whole poem or sometimes just plain prose) but these variants of one form work together to make a fascinating and sustained piece of music, like a fugue. The poems use their patterns to think through questions about consciousness. They are smart and exact but at the same time surprisingly emotional. Since 1993 Paterson has been eroding his style from the light loose poems of Nil Nil towards the spare almost mathematical brilliance of this book. He can write now with resonant clarity about anything: his dog, his children, the air, Dundee Council, Tony Blair, the soul. The melody of the sonnet form gives all these subjects an unstrained seriousness. 40 Sonnets is a wonderful offering, patiently made.


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