Don Paterson
Don Paterson is a poet, writer, and jazz guitarist born in Dundee in 1963. Writing in English, he has built a career that moves across literary composition, musical performance in the jazz tradition, and university teaching — a combination that marks him as a figure whose working life resists easy categorisation. He is a citizen of the United Kingdom and holds the role of journalist alongside his other occupations.
The recognition his writing has attracted spans several of the more substantial honours available to poets working in English. He received the Eric Gregory Award, which is typically given to poets at an early stage of their careers, as well as the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize and the Cholmondeley Award. The Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry — now the King's Gold Medal for Poetry — was also awarded to him, a distinction conferred by the British monarch on the recommendation of the Poet Laureate.
Beyond those prizes, Paterson is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire. These honours, taken together, represent a sustained record of formal recognition from some of the principal institutions of British literary life. The Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize and the King's Gold Medal for Poetry stand as two of the most concrete markers of his place within the landscape of poetry written in English.
Quotes by Don Paterson
We could easily have evolved eyelids thick enough to keep out the light, but we still need to see the shadows fall across them. We’re not yet safe.
Poetry, unlike music, is a meta-art, and relies upon non-physical structures for the production of its effects. In its case, the medium is syntax, grammar and logical continuity, which together form the carrier-wave of plain sense within which its deeper meanings are broadcast.
Anything that elicits an immediate nod of recognition has only reconfirmed a prejudice.
