DURHAM LITERATURE FESTIVAL 2000

 

DON PATERSON

Don Paterson was born in Dundee in 1963. He began working as a musician and moved to London in 1984. His poems have been published widely in various magazines and anthologies and he won an Eric Gregory Award in 1990.

Don’s first collection of poems, Nil Nil was published by Faber in April 1993 and was awarded that year’s the Forward Poetry Prize. He was included on the list of twenty poets chosen for the Poetry Society’s ‘New Generation Poets’ promotion in 1994 and in March of that year he won the Arvon Poetry Competition for his poem ‘A Private Bottling’: the first unanimous winner in the competitions history.

Don Paterson’s second collection of poems, God’s Gift to Women, was published by Faber and Faber in May 1997. This volume was awarded the TS Eliot Prize for Poetry 1997 and the 1998 Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize.

Faber published The Eyes in September 1999. It was shortlisted for the Whitbread Poetry Award. Faber also published 101 Sonnets: From Shakespeare to Heaney, edited by Don Paterson, in October 1999.

As a guitarist, Don Paterson co-leads the award-winning folk/jazz ensemble, Lammas, with whom he has recorded three albums.