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Zonal
Don Paterson's new collection of poetry starts from the premise that the crisis of mid-life may be a permanent state of mind. Zonal is an experiment in science-fictional and fantastic autobiography, with all of its poems taking their imaginative cue from the first season of The Twilight Zone (1959-1960), playing fast and loose with both their source material and their author's own life. Narrative and dramatic in approach, genre-hopping from horror to Black Mirror-style sci-fi, 'weird tale' to metaphysical fantasy, these poems change voices constantly in an attempt to get at the truth by alternate means. Occupying the shadowlands between confession and invention, Zonal takes us to places and spaces that feel endlessly surprising, uncanny and limitless.
64 pages, Hardcover
Published March 5, 2020
About the author
Don Paterson
67 books106 followersDon 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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
September 20, 2022
Reminds me of Simon Armitage’s Seeing Stars collection: risk-taking, determined to break the mould; falling completely flat.
May 28, 2020
It's a very clever little collection - though a little too clever for my taste. The poems are full of allusions to science fiction tv, particularly the Twilight Zone. It's an interesting framing device but followed a bit rigorously. I don't care sufficiently about the source material for these poems to interest me.
January 12, 2022
I took Don Paterson's classes at university wherever i could. this review will be completely biased by the supertext of all Paterson's poetry in my mind (the fact that he is one of the cleverest, funniest and most observant people ive ever been in a room with).
This book is one i've owned for years, but for one reason or another (mostly due to the longer form, first person, multiple narrative voice/not DP's voice (generally) of the poet format). I finally got into it and i'm mad that it took me so long.
This collection is one of the funniest and most nihilistic collections of poems i've ever read. Both dwelling fully in Humanity's habit of retrospection and transience, while also frequently inhabiting in the future(successfully). The various narrators include: someone struggling with their own mortality who lives with Death and tries to ward him off, a Jazz musician (like DP) who meets their idol and considers the concept of addiction, someone in a serious state of serious mental illness, someone in a serious state of grief, a intergalactic prisoner on a futuristic spaceship prison, a nerdy old man living in an episode of Black Mirror. But somehow, this is still not a book about any of those topics, and it's still got Paterson's characteristic original metaphor vehicles and humour and tour de force of poetic skill. Closest comparison to me in form is Richard Silken.
My fav lines:
From poem Death
'His trick - by which i mean the way he'd convince you of his earnestness - was to actualise at some random and unpredictab;e [pst. unruffled, immaculate, like he'd been there all along; vaping at the turn of the stairs'
'he was technically neither salaried nor self-employed- a slave to his work, he'd always thought'
'whatever the dead had left uneaten on the stove after he'd walked them to the car'
'In the end I gave up, I hugged him. I said, It's ok, it's ok. I'll go with you. Just give me five to get some things and say goodbye to friends'
From poem The Way we Were
'watching old drunken one night stands or those first dates when the two of you, still strangers, went further than you've ever dared again'
'the wood pigeon on the branch outside the bedroom'
'anyone using the phrase making memories unironically should be shot in the head unless they only have a year to live and their kids are very young'.
'I guess I love the future. It holds such promise! It just always turns up a bit too early, a bit too good to be true.' (The known irony is extreme here.)
From poem Chet's Habit
'I knew that I should always go in fear of honeydew melon and psychopathic narcissists but that nothing was ever going to hold me back'
'are things that cause the very pain they alleviate'
'our tendency to confuse love and refined sugar'
'as if the paradox of our habit wasn't bad enough, we are often conducted into the arms of death by those who love us most'
'but i know folks, for reasons no more or less selfish are all temperance and charity and they are among the worst people i have ever met'.
From poem The Lonely
'my homemade chess set of rocks and wing nuts'
'Behind the chinese room of her beautiful face'
'looks away at her favourite moon, plausibly reflective'
'She perhaps forgets that as a prissoner of the state my options are more limited'
'they are neither conscious nor unconscious - a more human distinction that we admit - but figure their next mopve through a kind of saurian necessity.'
'i think the most human thing we feel for one another is pity'
'No Adam, everything has a soul. But some things just can't risk waking it.'
This book is one i've owned for years, but for one reason or another (mostly due to the longer form, first person, multiple narrative voice/not DP's voice (generally) of the poet format). I finally got into it and i'm mad that it took me so long.
This collection is one of the funniest and most nihilistic collections of poems i've ever read. Both dwelling fully in Humanity's habit of retrospection and transience, while also frequently inhabiting in the future(successfully). The various narrators include: someone struggling with their own mortality who lives with Death and tries to ward him off, a Jazz musician (like DP) who meets their idol and considers the concept of addiction, someone in a serious state of serious mental illness, someone in a serious state of grief, a intergalactic prisoner on a futuristic spaceship prison, a nerdy old man living in an episode of Black Mirror. But somehow, this is still not a book about any of those topics, and it's still got Paterson's characteristic original metaphor vehicles and humour and tour de force of poetic skill. Closest comparison to me in form is Richard Silken.
My fav lines:
From poem Death
'His trick - by which i mean the way he'd convince you of his earnestness - was to actualise at some random and unpredictab;e [pst. unruffled, immaculate, like he'd been there all along; vaping at the turn of the stairs'
'he was technically neither salaried nor self-employed- a slave to his work, he'd always thought'
'whatever the dead had left uneaten on the stove after he'd walked them to the car'
'In the end I gave up, I hugged him. I said, It's ok, it's ok. I'll go with you. Just give me five to get some things and say goodbye to friends'
From poem The Way we Were
'watching old drunken one night stands or those first dates when the two of you, still strangers, went further than you've ever dared again'
'the wood pigeon on the branch outside the bedroom'
'anyone using the phrase making memories unironically should be shot in the head unless they only have a year to live and their kids are very young'.
'I guess I love the future. It holds such promise! It just always turns up a bit too early, a bit too good to be true.' (The known irony is extreme here.)
From poem Chet's Habit
'I knew that I should always go in fear of honeydew melon and psychopathic narcissists but that nothing was ever going to hold me back'
'are things that cause the very pain they alleviate'
'our tendency to confuse love and refined sugar'
'as if the paradox of our habit wasn't bad enough, we are often conducted into the arms of death by those who love us most'
'but i know folks, for reasons no more or less selfish are all temperance and charity and they are among the worst people i have ever met'.
From poem The Lonely
'my homemade chess set of rocks and wing nuts'
'Behind the chinese room of her beautiful face'
'looks away at her favourite moon, plausibly reflective'
'She perhaps forgets that as a prissoner of the state my options are more limited'
'they are neither conscious nor unconscious - a more human distinction that we admit - but figure their next mopve through a kind of saurian necessity.'
'i think the most human thing we feel for one another is pity'
'No Adam, everything has a soul. But some things just can't risk waking it.'
July 1, 2021
One poem in I had low-key decided that I would be giving this three stars and moving on with life. I got this because it was a signed copy from the last word and because I like collecting things. I thought I would abandon this one. After all, I don’t generally like sci fi, and while I’ve heard about the twilight zone, I’ve never actually watched the twilight zone and I don’t know a thing about it.
Instead I had a mini emotional trip on a Wednesday night because the Deal. It’s not the kind of trip one can really describe. How do I tell you that the time I’ve lost haunts me and eternity sounded appealing until I really thought about how time, and the idea of limited time, and time going on and us changing gives our lives so much meaning. Not eve meaning, but purpose.
Instead I had a mini emotional trip on a Wednesday night because the Deal. It’s not the kind of trip one can really describe. How do I tell you that the time I’ve lost haunts me and eternity sounded appealing until I really thought about how time, and the idea of limited time, and time going on and us changing gives our lives so much meaning. Not eve meaning, but purpose.
January 20, 2026
4.5 ⭐️
THE SONG OF THE HUMAN
There are days like this when I remember I am living in a
except the visitors have long gotten bored at the sight of the
scratching at a piece of paper, eating sullenly from a cereal
and have wandered off in search of more interesting exhibits.
and found it unlocked. I guess with everything falling apart,
and I can now go out if I wish, explore the burning planet, try
but to be honest I think I have become institutionalized and I
THE SONG OF THE HUMAN
There are days like this when I remember I am living in a
glass box marked Earth creature in his own habitat
except the visitors have long gotten bored at the sight of the
bald ape who sits all day
scratching at a piece of paper, eating sullenly from a cereal
bowl, or playing his funny little twang-box
and have wandered off in search of more interesting exhibits.
Last week I tried the door
and found it unlocked. I guess with everything falling apart,
security is their least concern
and I can now go out if I wish, explore the burning planet, try
to converse or breed with the weeping natives,
but to be honest I think I have become institutionalized and I
am disinclined to wander far.
April 19, 2020
Loosely inspired by episodes from the first series of The Twilight Zone, loosely (not) autobiographical, this collection of poems by the ever-changing and always reliable Don Paterson is filled with some great images, some great lines and a consistent and true authorial voice. As a big fan of the Rod Serling scripted episodes I was delighted to recognise a few episodes re-imagined among the poems, but that is an extra layer that is not essential to enjoying the poetry.
May 10, 2023
I liked this but not sure whether some of them are prose poems or poems because the verse is so complex; but very admirable. I thought it was deteriorating towards the end, but the last poem was beautiful and shook off some of the cynicism of the latter poems. However the "conceit" of connecting the poems to the landscape of The Twilight Zone worked well as did the pervading sense of Death as a joker and compassionate undertaker .
March 11, 2020
Don Paterson’s new collection ZONAL is funny, clever, conversational in tone (but what conversations!), with great plot twists, and liberally seamed with speculative & fantastic tropes that he constantly subverts. And did I mention funny? Essentially the closest thing to an Adam Roberts science fiction novel that a volume of poetry could ever get. A+
April 10, 2021
The third of Paterson's collections I've read, and not the best but not the worst of the three.
I find him in general a very middle of the road poet, with a lot of interesting ideas that get bogged down in language that doesn't exactly excite me greatly.
These are all based off of Twilight Zone episodes, and I do think he works best with a stable and concrete foundation on which he can build.
I find him in general a very middle of the road poet, with a lot of interesting ideas that get bogged down in language that doesn't exactly excite me greatly.
These are all based off of Twilight Zone episodes, and I do think he works best with a stable and concrete foundation on which he can build.
January 31, 2021
I liked how this poetry collection is more prose than poetry. It helps make it mor approachable for someone like me. I also got a thrill out of associating poems to certain episodes of The Twilight Zone original series. The thing I found less interesting was the reflections of this privileged guy and his guitar. Those poems did nothing for me, and in general I hate reading about music. I really wished there had been more reimagining so of TZ episodes; those were more engaging and original in ideas and language.
October 27, 2021
I maybe didn't have the requisite Twilight Zone knowledge to mesh with every poem, but I really enjoyed the voice in this collection. It's clever without becoming stuffy and knowing without becoming full of smarm.
September 29, 2022
"[...] While I might have two or
three books left in me the chances are it's the same one again,
that one about death, doubles and the void, and I can't take
another school visit where the kids
are asking me about existential nihilism for their exams"
Four stars. Just for that.
three books left in me the chances are it's the same one again,
that one about death, doubles and the void, and I can't take
another school visit where the kids
are asking me about existential nihilism for their exams"
Four stars. Just for that.
December 3, 2022
I loved this.
On first reading I particularly enjoyed the poems that spoke about music; the Chet Baker poem and the poem about different guitarists expressions.
I liked the verbiage and caffeinated conversational tone. The slight sleight of hand he pulls. Like a salesman.
On first reading I particularly enjoyed the poems that spoke about music; the Chet Baker poem and the poem about different guitarists expressions.
I liked the verbiage and caffeinated conversational tone. The slight sleight of hand he pulls. Like a salesman.
March 6, 2023
I was looking for Don Paterson’s two books that won TS Eliot Prize but couldn’t find it. So I tried this book instead, and it was pretty good. I like his Scottish accent when he read his poems. And I think he’s quite obsessed with The Twilight Zone lol.
February 5, 2021
Stunning, gasp inducing, audacious.
Will be returning to this regularly.
Will be returning to this regularly.
Read
June 25, 2023Good to snack on, and properly funny sometimes. Didn't think science fiction and poetry could gel — dread to think what crime thriller verse would look like.
Read
August 29, 2024god i love aphorisms n conversations and dreaming of a little jesus talking on a cross & long jazz
June 15, 2020
I was bit concerned whether I would like this as much as I have liked his previous collections looking at the premise but I needn't have been concerned, its as sparky and inventive as his other collections. As lively as ever and full of fantastical ideas.Very much enjoyed it.
September 18, 2022
A gift from Andrew Dickinson. I absolutely love the twilight zone so I really enjoyed all of these inspired poems -- I will revisit soon and note down some of my favorites.
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews