Rain, by Don Paterson, is the first new collection of poems for six years from the acclaimed Scottish poet and winner of the Whitbread Prize for Poetry (2003).
Don Paterson was born in Dundee in 1963. He works as a musician and editor and has written four collections of poems, Nil Nil (1993), God's Gift to Women (1997) - winner of both the T. S. Eliot Prize and the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, The Eyes (1999) and Landing Light which won both the T. S. Eliot Prize and the Whitbread Prize for Poetry. He lives in Kirriemuir, Angus.
""Rain" is a truly important book, not only in the development of
this must-read poet, but because it engages with the rough and
tumble of life in a way we recognise as true. Read it now, before
it becomes famous." --Fiona Sampson, "The Independent""The master
of shadowplay demonstrates again that he remains clear-eyed about
the representations he so artfully contrives." --Adam Newey, "The
Guardian""Don Paterson's poetry collection"""Rain" contains some
great-and I do mean great-poems. He comes very close to Yeats at
moments; Yeats without the hocus-pocus. First time through, I
reread 'The Day' three times, just to confirm it was as astounding
as I suspected." --Toby Litt, "The New Statesman" (Best Books of
the Year)"Paterson is simply one of the best living poets in the
UK." --"The Observer" (England)"The musical drive of the poems
gives them an immense advantage in power; elements become lodged in
the ear and hence in the memory.Dealing as this book does, in its
diverse meditations, with loss, guilt, anger, helplessness, and
many of the other insalubrious emotions that are the lot of human
beings, it seems only just that the final poem (and the title poem
at that) should be a gesture aimed at washing away the aches of the
past, much as Jehovah was said to have washed the sinful world
clean with the flood. Rain, in this poem, is the atmospheric rain
of a noir film. Such a film, Paterson says, can do no wrong,
regardless of its possible errors of plot or scene or casting.
Forget the spillages of our past: the ink, the milk, the blood. We
are cleansed, but we are also 'the fallen rain's own sons and
daughters / and none of this, none of this matters.' It is a sort
of secular absolution, making the corrosive world briefly bearable,
perhaps.This is a poignant and remarkable book, worth a reader's
thoughtful attention. A number of the poems included in it are, I
feel sure, destined to last." --Jan Schreiber, "Contemporary Poetry
Review"
“"Rain" is a truly important book, not only in the development of
this must-read poet, but because it engages with the rough and
tumble of life in a way we recognise as true. Read it now, before
it becomes famous.” —Fiona Sampson, "The Independent
"“The master of shadowplay demonstrates again that he remains
clear-eyed about the representations he so artfully contrives.”
—Adam Newey, "The Guardian
"“Don Paterson's poetry collection" ""Rain" contains some great–and
I do mean great–poems. He comes very close to Yeats at moments;
Yeats without the hocus-pocus. First time through, I reread ‘The
Day’ three times, just to confirm it was as astounding as I
suspected.” —Toby Litt, "The New Statesman" (Best Books of the
Year)
“Paterson is simply one of the best living poets in the UK.” —"The
Observer" (England)
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