Thrillingly varied ... [Paterson is] an immensely skilled poet of craft and restraint, who speaks with a stunning lyrical voice. Reading this collection, you feel lucky to be alive while Paterson is writing about our world ... he deserves to win every prize going. (Charlotte Runcie
Daily Telegraph)
A poet of genius. (Stuart Kelly
The Scotsman)
'Don Paterson's 40 Sonnets is what it says but more: variety in fourteen lines, and a wicked chunk of prose. He makes you laugh, or fall silent for minutes before you read it again.'
(Tom Stoppard
TLS, Books of the Year)
'Don Paterson finds more room in the sonnet than you'd find in some novels and strides through the ages, marrying craft to grain in 40 Sonnets.'
(Jackie Kay
Observer, Books of the Year)
'40 Sonnets breathes audacious vivacity into an ancient format, showing that poetic structures are no impediment to emotional intensity.' (William Boyd
New Statesman, Books of the Year)
Buy it and read it and go on reading it. Not a foot wrong. (Candia McWilliam
The Herald, Books of the Year)
40 Sonnets by Don Paterson shows his sheer mastery of the form, by turns scathing, witty and profoundly moving. (Alan Spence
The Herald, Books of the Year)
'40 Sonnets is simply extraordinary: all life, human or otherwise, in 14 lines.'
(James Kidd
Independent)
40 Sonnets is a richly emotional, often plangent and highly assured piece of work. (Rosemary Goring
The Herald (Scotland))
Paterson's poetry has always been distinguished by its marriage of craft and lyricism, and the sonnet is, simply, the perfect vehicle to showcase this. (Sarah Crown
Guardian)
Don Paterson was born in Dundee in 1963. His previous poetry collections include Nil Nil, God's Gift to Women,Landing Light and Rain. He has also published two books of aphorism, as well as translations of Antonio Machado and Rainer Maria Rilke. His poetry has won many awards, including the Whitbread Poetry Prize, the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize and all three Forward Prizes; he is currently the only poet to have won the T. S. Eliot Prize twice. He was awarded the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry in 2009. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, the English Association and the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and is currently Professor of Poetry at the University of St Andrews. Since 1997 he has been poetry editor at Picador Macmillan, and he also works as a jazz musician and composer. He lives in Edinburgh.