Don Paterson facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Don Paterson OBE FRSE FRSL
at 2013 Bridlington Poetry Festival
Born	Donald Paterson 1963 (age 61–62) Dundee, Scotland
Nationality	Scottish
Notable works	Nil Nil (1993); God's Gift to Women (1997); Landing Light (2003)
Notable awards	Eric Gregory Award; Forward Poetry Prize; T. S. Eliot Prize; Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize

Donald Paterson was born in 1963 in Dundee, Scotland. He is a talented Scottish poet, writer, and musician. His amazing work has earned him many important awards. These include the Forward Poetry Prize and the T. S. Eliot Prize. In 2009, he also received the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry.

Don Paterson's Career Highlights

Donald Paterson started his career by winning awards for his poetry. In 1990, he received an Eric Gregory Award. His poem "A Private Bottling" won the Arvon Foundation International Poetry Competition in 1993. He was also chosen as one of the "New Generation Poets" in 1994. This list featured 20 promising poets. In 2002, he earned a Creative Scotland Award from the Scottish Arts Council.

Award-Winning Poetry Collections

Paterson's first book of poems was Nil Nil, published in 1993. It won the Forward Poetry Prize for Best First Collection. His next book, God's Gift to Women (1997), won both the T. S. Eliot Prize and the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize. In 1999, he published The Eyes, which were his own versions of poems by the Spanish poet Antonio Machado.

Editing and Other Works

Donald Paterson has also worked as an editor. He edited 101 Sonnets: From Shakespeare to Heaney in 1999. He also co-edited Last Words: New Poetry for the New Century with Jo Shapcott in the same year. His poetry collection Landing Light (2003) was very successful. It won both the 2003 T. S. Eliot Prize and the 2003 Whitbread Poetry Award.

Paterson has written three collections of short, clever sayings called aphorisms. These include The Book of Shadows (2004), The Blind Eye (2007), and Best Thought, Worst Thought (2008). In 2006, he published Orpheus, which was his own version of Rilke's famous sonnets.

Teaching and Music

Beyond writing, Donald Paterson teaches at the University of St Andrews in Scotland. For over 25 years, he was also the poetry editor for Picador, a London publishing company. He is a skilled jazz guitarist. He performs by himself and used to lead a jazz-folk band called Lammas with Tim Garland for ten years.

Recent Activities

In 2012, Paterson wrote an open letter in The Herald newspaper. In this letter, he shared his thoughts about Creative Scotland, which is Scotland's arts funding group. From 2012 to 2013, he was a visiting professor at St Anne's College, Oxford. His memoir, Toy Fights: A Boyhood, was released by Faber & Faber in January 2023.

Awards and Special Recognition

Donald Paterson has received many honors for his contributions. In 2008, he was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE). This is a special award from the British Queen. In 2009, he was given the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry. He became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2004. In 2015, he was also chosen as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.