Toy Fights: A Boyhood by Don Paterson review – God, brawls and jazz
Books interview
Don Paterson: ‘Poetry often involves obsessive personalities’
August 2022
The Arctic by Don Paterson review – poetry from the last-chance saloon
Paterson tackles everything from nuclear apocalypse to the male appendage in this confident, blackly humorous collection
December 2018
'A rose with a thousand petals' … what makes an aphorism – and is this a golden age?
Forget haikus, epigrams, proverbs, maxims, adages and riddles. If you’re needing a sliver of wisdom, try an aphorism. There are certainly plenty around …
October 2018
The Guardian Books podcast
Anna Burns's Booker prize win and poet Kate Tempest – books podcast
Milkman delivers the 2018 Man Booker prize, while we listen in as a poet discusses the lyric art with her editor
January 2018
Curses and verses: the spoken-word row splitting the poetry world apart
Don Paterson
Poetry world split over polemic attacking 'amateur' work by 'young female poets'
December 2016
Treasure Palaces: Great Writers Visit Great Museums – review
From John Lanchester at the Prado to Ann Wroe at Dove Cottage, these accounts of favourite museums are a joy to read
September 2016
Nicholas Lezard's choice
40 Sonnets by Don Paterson review – playful poems from a master
Nicholas Lezard’s paperback of the week: extraordinary, beautiful or funny – these poems from an expert in rhythm and rhyme stay with you
January 2016
Frances Hardinge’s The Lie Tree wins Costa book of the year 2015
First children’s book to win overall Costa prize since Philip Pullman in 2001 described as work of ‘great narrative tension’ and ‘multi-layered page-turner’
40 Sonnets by Don Paterson review – on the crest of a wave
TS Eliot poetry prize shortlist stretches to Jamaica and beyond
September 2015
40 Sonnets review – the perfect vehicle for Don Paterson’s craft and lyricism
The Saturday poem
The Saturday poem: Mercies
August 2015
Books blog
Kate Tempest slams conventional poets' disdain for performance
Arguing against intellectual snobbery, star author says performance returns the artform to ancient days when ‘it was about how well you could communicate’
December 2013
2013 in review
The best poetry of 2013
From Fleur Adcock's Glass Wings to Train Songs edited by Sean O'Brien and Don Paterson, Adam Newey rounds up the best poetry of the year
November 2013
Train Songs edited by Sean O'Brien and Don Paterson – review
A collection of poems and lyrics, from Tom Waits to Philip Larkin to WH Auden, makes for an enchanting tribute to the railways, writes David Wheatley
May 2013
Carol Ann Duffy unveils poems inspired by Cambridge's museums
Jo Shapcott, Jackie Kay, Don Paterson and seven other poets join laureate's Thresholds project to find poetry in subjects ranging from the first bird to slavery
