Biography Don Paterson

Poet, writer and musician Don Paterson was born in Dundee, Scotland, in 1963. He won an Eric Gregory Award in 1990 and his poem 'A Private Bottling' won the Arvon Foundation International Poetry Competition in 1993. He was included on the list of 20 poets chosen for the Poetry Society's 'New Generation Poets' promotion in 1994. In 2002 he was awarded a Scottish Arts Council Creative Scotland Award.

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, and The Eyes, adaptations of the work of Spanish poet Antonio Machado (1875-1939), was published in 1999. He is also editor of 101 Sonnets: From Shakespeare to Heaney (1999) and of Last Words: New Poetry for the New Century (1999) with Jo Shapcott.

His plays include The Land of Cakes and A'body's Aberdee, both performed by Dundee Repertory Theatre. His latest collection of poems, Landing Light (2003), won both the 2003 T. S. Eliot Prize and the 2003 Whitbread Poetry Award. In 2008, he won the Forward Poetry Prize (Best Single Poem) and was awarded an OBE.

Don Paterson is poetry editor for the London publishers Picador and he reviews for several national newspapers. An accomplished jazz guitarist, he works solo and with the jazz-folk ensemble, Lammas. He lives in Kirriemuir, Scotland.

Sonnets to Orpheus, his version of Rilke's Die Sonette an Orpheus, was published in 2006. His latest book is Best Thoughts, Worst Thoughts: On Art, Sex, Work and Death (2008).

Bibliography

Nil Nil   Faber and Faber, 1993

God's Gift to Women   Faber and Faber, 1997

101 Sonnets: From Shakespeare to Heaney   (editor)   Faber and Faber, 1999

Last Words: New Poetry for the New Century   (co-editor with Jo Shapcott)   Picador, 1999

The Eyes   Faber and Faber, 1999

Robert Burns: Poems Selected by Don Paterson   (editor)   Faber and Faber, 2001

The White Lie: New and Selected Poems   Graywolf Press (US), 2001

Don't Ask Me What I Mean: Poets in their Own Words   (editor with Clare Brown)   Picador, 2003

Landing Light   Faber and Faber, 2003

All The Poems You Need To Say Goodbye   (editor)   Picador, 2004

New British Poetry   (editor with Charles Simic)   Graywolf Press (US), 2004

The Book of Shadows   Picador, 2004

Sonnets to Orpheus   Faber and Faber, 2006

The Blind Eye: A Book of Late Advice   Faber and Faber, 2007

Alison Watt (Phantom)   (with Colin Wiggins)   Yale University Press (US), 2008

Best Thoughts, Worst Thoughts: On Art, Sex, Work and Death   Graywolf Press (US), 2008