The Eyes

by Don Paterson

Antonio Machado is one of the towering figures of twentieth-century Spanish poetry, a writer whose austere musicality has been said to capture the very essence of the language. By going for as disciplined a treatment of both form and diction as Machado exhibits, Don Paterson succeeds in writing what might be called a spiritual portrait, a synthesis of his own verbal inventiveness and a sympathetic rendering of the works that inspired him.

Genres: Poetry

60 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Don Paterson (b. 1963) is a Scottish poet and writer. He is the author of sixteen books of poetry, aphorism, criticism, memoir and poetic theory. His poetry has won many awards, including the Whitbread Poetry Prize, the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, the Costa Poetry Award, three Forward Prizes, the T.S. Eliot Prize on two occasions, and the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry.

He is a Professor Emeritus at the University of St. Andrews, and for twenty-five years was Poetry Editor at Picador MacMillan. He has long had a parallel career as a jazz guitarist.

He lives in Kirriemuir, Angus.

Reviews

[emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

‘Machado’s Spanish isn’t English, and for that reason these poems are something like piano transcriptions of guitar music. The bare octaves and fifths that Machado plays can find no equivalent resonance in the great contraption, no matter how loudly we strike them. The only thing we can do is work a little more chromaticism, a little directed emotional reading, in the hope that occasionally, a description of gravitas or an awe can stand for its unmediated sounding.’ – Afterword .

Recently I got myself a copy of Don Paterson's latest book, Toy Fights: A Boyhood, but I thought (since it’s been a while) I should read some of his poems before I read that. And this collection was just exactly what I needed, and wanted, and want still to read again. Also it’s impossible for me to forget how effortlessly ‘cool’ he looked playing his translucent/see-through electric guitar few years back after a poetry sesh. Every time I read his stuff, that’s what I’m reminded of. Now I’m fully ready to go ahead and read his ‘memoir’.

‘Perhaps, when we’re half-asleep,
the same hand that sows the stars
trails across that galactic lyre…
the dying wave reaching our lips
as two or three true words’ – ‘Chords’

[Brian K · Rating 3 out of 5]

A couple delightfully straightforward poems but overall was a very mixed bag -- some short, some long, some lyric, some prosaic. But, because of course the same reservations about translation versus versioning apply as with Paterson's Rilke, it's hard for the non-Spanish-speaker (me) to know if those problems are Machado's or Paterson's. Here are a couple of his proverbs:

Light your poem from two angles
one for the straight reading,
one for the sidelong

~

Among figs I am soft as a fig,
among rocks, hard as a rock;
in other words . . . useless.

~

Your truth? No, the truth.
Come one, we'll look for it.
Yours . . . please, keep it.

[Richard Clay · Rating 5 out of 5]

As I recently wrote of Patetson's subsequent collection, Landing Light, there's more going on here than is accessible on a first reading. These poems will demand repeated study but that's not to reduce them to the equivalent of crossword puzzles. The ambiguities felt or, in some cases, suffered by the various narrative voices are emotionally urgent, sometimes disturbing.

[EIJANDOLUM · Rating 2 out of 5]

Then a burn, a cataract,
always alive, always fugitive…
It’s poetry,
a real thing of the heart.

[Al-anoud Al-Serhan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was looking for contemporary poets worth reading,randomly came across Don Paterson and started with The Eyes.his poems are beautiful yet complex,had to look up a few words employed in some of his poems to capture the meaning and soul of the poem.i look forward to starting with his second book God's gift to women.

Free verse?
You should flee it, rather, if you find it so enslaving.

[Wilde Sky · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of aphorisms (a terse saying, expressing a general truth or principle, or it can be an astute observation).

A few of the pieces in this collection were interesting, but for the vast majority they either felt “known” or didn't grab me.

[Monique · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is beautiful. I read the whole thing through in one go, sitting in the park on a 40 degree day. It's the first book of poems that I've read cover to cover. I want to read it again.

[Apoorva · Rating 2 out of 5]

Eh. Whatever. Not much I identified with or was impressed by.

[Mia Saldanha · Rating 3 out of 5]

An enjoyable quick read with some very quirky musings that I will definitely be using as social media captions

also, how dare you slander Fernando Pessoa