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Echoism
The theme of echoes and echo-hunting runs through Paterson's new collection, particularly in poems that mourn the poet's father. Elsewhere, Echoism - the syndrome that some say complements narcissism - features poems about men and women, polemical responses to the pandemic, odes to dogs, movies and the male anatomy, and country songs. The collection includes a masterly series of translations into Scots from the Cuban poet Gabriela Mistral, and part four of Paterson's ongoing long poem 'The Alexandrian Library', which describes the hunt for a phone signal in a world on the cusp of man-made extinction. These are poems for and of our times by one of our most celebrated and formally exciting poets.
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Published August 2, 2022
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 - 20 of 20 reviews
December 29, 2023
I read poetry too fast. Most poems I reread. Some hurt.
September 20, 2022
The stand-out poem is ‘A Winter Apple’ and the collection offers the most unconventional elegy for a dead parent I know of (‘On Sounding Good’):
‘Sir, know this: that you were utter shite
in the Kirkintilloch Social Club that night
when at the bidding of your next of kin
you rushed the stage and counted yourself in,
resolved to give it laldy, your best shot,
all you had and more that you did not’
‘Sir, know this: that you were utter shite
in the Kirkintilloch Social Club that night
when at the bidding of your next of kin
you rushed the stage and counted yourself in,
resolved to give it laldy, your best shot,
all you had and more that you did not’
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December 25, 2022merry christmas everyone <33
December 24, 2024
mehhghhhghhhhhhhggggghhh
poetry tutors meghhhhhh
poetry tutors meghhhhhh
November 5, 2022
The Don is the Don.
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October 31, 2022tonally doesn't rest so much as Plateau in the D&G sense the front jacket mentions 'metaphysical horror' which I think is present here more explicitly than anywhere else in DP (daft punk). A very felt anguish in the Macneician edit Spring Letter which is probably my favourite or at least my highlight piece beyond the natural choice of Alexandrians. a lot to love in the last three, A Winter Apple, The Infinite, and August which makes me wonder if Donaghy ever really left after the 'surprise elegy' of Two Trees in Rain. Anyway a fascinating little installment in the Don Canon which seems to spill itself like a gutted fish about halfway through (a good thing).
October 26, 2022
My favourite DP to date.
I love the pairing of August with Don Miguel’s Patio from Rain.
I loved Spring Letter, it put into voice all my feelings watching the news in the early days of Ukraine. And how stupid it is.
I loved the post apocalyptic Dundee.
I love the pairing of August with Don Miguel’s Patio from Rain.
I loved Spring Letter, it put into voice all my feelings watching the news in the early days of Ukraine. And how stupid it is.
I loved the post apocalyptic Dundee.
December 29, 2022
This is given an incorrect title here. Nonetheless, an overly clever and referenced volume. Some good poems here but too clever by half. Lots of contemporary references but an overall feeling of glibness.
July 20, 2023
For me, this is one of those poetry collections that says the right thing at the right time, that hits upon what could be called the current dialectic. Poems with titles like 'Saudade for Brexit' ('saudade' refers to a feeling of melancholy or nostalgia - I had to look it up), 'Atheist Prayer', 'The Alexandrian Library, Part IV: Citizen Science' and 'Easter 2020' (which deals with Covid), deal with prescient subjects from the political and spiritual to science and technology, all delivered in Paterson's precise rhythmic vernacular. It is impossible to read these poems without hearing their beat.
'Hyphen' has a performance element, full of quick rhythms and sharp stabbing rhymes: 'meanwhile the Ghost rewinds, replays/the tape from tomb to womb to tomb/to find the error of our ways.' It also reflects the theme of beginnings and ends which encompasses the entire collection. The prose poem, 'Echoism,' segues at its close into metred lines, '...how we end is more important/than how we begin,/and to serve as warming/to those who would fall/for those who would fall/for themselves alone.' While 'Alexandrian Library,' which comes near the close of the book, begins, 'Ends write themselves, but where to begin...', as though Paterson is weighing the scales of personal and collective memory. He imbues this with imagery that reaches back beyond human life, 'I confess, though, I wouldn't have started from here,/which is why I don't dwell upon trivial regrets/like the Poll Tax, the Darien Scheme or Columba./No, no: in the main, I deplore the collision/of the palaeocratons of Laurentia and Baltica,/and the subsequent loss of the Iapetus Ocean...' (this being the moment at which the land masses of Scotland and England collided.
The acknowledgements state that the Alexandrian Library poem refers explicitly to some of the research projects in connection with which the poem was commissioned, '...Facebook or Netflix or sumcunt had placed/a pair of AIs in direct conversation/to find they'd established their own private language/within twenty seconds of saying hello.' There are of course, Paterson's usual allusions to Greek mythology. The poem, 'Fame' is addressed to 'Father Apollo', while 'Atheist Prayer' appeals paradoxically to the God it doesn't believe in, 'Hear my prayer O non-existent God' - one of the trip-ups of nihilism.
Yet the effects of musing over this vast expanse of time is that it makes the personal more poignant, these namely being Paterson's poems about his dad, which occur of course at the beginning of the book, Paterson's own beginning, I guess, 'Snaba. From before I could remember/a name so often mine I barely knew it,/although all names are strange, so long unused./Back then, all I heard was the love in it...' ('Snaba', referring to his father's nickname for him).
Of course, there are fun moments. 'from Cool Tricks for Kids' reminds me of the irreverent comic Viz, 'Tell a friend you'll make their pocket money disappear. When they hand it over, ask them to close their eyes.' And who doesn't love a stab at critics, 'Nonetheless tanked up on the free Cava they/lined up to outdo each other in their sarcasm' (Art and Criticism).
I'll finish with a line from one of my favourites, 'A Winter Apple,' which speaks not of beginnings and ends, but what comes, so to speak, between the pages, 'All that touched it shook its heart.'
'Hyphen' has a performance element, full of quick rhythms and sharp stabbing rhymes: 'meanwhile the Ghost rewinds, replays/the tape from tomb to womb to tomb/to find the error of our ways.' It also reflects the theme of beginnings and ends which encompasses the entire collection. The prose poem, 'Echoism,' segues at its close into metred lines, '...how we end is more important/than how we begin,/and to serve as warming/to those who would fall/for those who would fall/for themselves alone.' While 'Alexandrian Library,' which comes near the close of the book, begins, 'Ends write themselves, but where to begin...', as though Paterson is weighing the scales of personal and collective memory. He imbues this with imagery that reaches back beyond human life, 'I confess, though, I wouldn't have started from here,/which is why I don't dwell upon trivial regrets/like the Poll Tax, the Darien Scheme or Columba./No, no: in the main, I deplore the collision/of the palaeocratons of Laurentia and Baltica,/and the subsequent loss of the Iapetus Ocean...' (this being the moment at which the land masses of Scotland and England collided.
The acknowledgements state that the Alexandrian Library poem refers explicitly to some of the research projects in connection with which the poem was commissioned, '...Facebook or Netflix or sumcunt had placed/a pair of AIs in direct conversation/to find they'd established their own private language/within twenty seconds of saying hello.' There are of course, Paterson's usual allusions to Greek mythology. The poem, 'Fame' is addressed to 'Father Apollo', while 'Atheist Prayer' appeals paradoxically to the God it doesn't believe in, 'Hear my prayer O non-existent God' - one of the trip-ups of nihilism.
Yet the effects of musing over this vast expanse of time is that it makes the personal more poignant, these namely being Paterson's poems about his dad, which occur of course at the beginning of the book, Paterson's own beginning, I guess, 'Snaba. From before I could remember/a name so often mine I barely knew it,/although all names are strange, so long unused./Back then, all I heard was the love in it...' ('Snaba', referring to his father's nickname for him).
Of course, there are fun moments. 'from Cool Tricks for Kids' reminds me of the irreverent comic Viz, 'Tell a friend you'll make their pocket money disappear. When they hand it over, ask them to close their eyes.' And who doesn't love a stab at critics, 'Nonetheless tanked up on the free Cava they/lined up to outdo each other in their sarcasm' (Art and Criticism).
I'll finish with a line from one of my favourites, 'A Winter Apple,' which speaks not of beginnings and ends, but what comes, so to speak, between the pages, 'All that touched it shook its heart.'
July 28, 2023
I am not me
I am not me. I am the one
who walks unseen beside me.
The one I sense, from time to time,
but often forget; the one
who is silent and still while I'm speaking;
who forgives me when I'm spiteful;
who is where I am not;
who will stay standing when I finally lie down. (12)
Bad Day
White roads
grey olive-trees
the sun as taken back
the fields' fire
even your memory
is drying out
O soul of dust (19)
The Infinite
When I was young, I loved this lonely hill
with its long windbreak that hides the last horizon.
I’d lie back on the grass and stare away
up into that vast supernal blue
and knew a silence of no earthly kind.
My heart held no fear, and it told no hour.
And when the wind went sifting through the leaves
like so much breathing in an empty room
I’d think on how the precincts of the dead
are haunted by the living, how the present
is veined with every life it ushers through...
The ocean never knew a sweeter shipwreck
than my own drowning in that endlessness. (80)
I am not me. I am the one
who walks unseen beside me.
The one I sense, from time to time,
but often forget; the one
who is silent and still while I'm speaking;
who forgives me when I'm spiteful;
who is where I am not;
who will stay standing when I finally lie down. (12)
Bad Day
White roads
grey olive-trees
the sun as taken back
the fields' fire
even your memory
is drying out
O soul of dust (19)
The Infinite
When I was young, I loved this lonely hill
with its long windbreak that hides the last horizon.
I’d lie back on the grass and stare away
up into that vast supernal blue
and knew a silence of no earthly kind.
My heart held no fear, and it told no hour.
And when the wind went sifting through the leaves
like so much breathing in an empty room
I’d think on how the precincts of the dead
are haunted by the living, how the present
is veined with every life it ushers through...
The ocean never knew a sweeter shipwreck
than my own drowning in that endlessness. (80)
February 17, 2025
This is the first collection I’ve read by this poet. I enjoyed his style, word choice is crucial for me and it was a refreshing voice that didn’t feel the need to show off in a thesaurian way
His use of current and recent themes such as Brexit and the pandemic were well executed - great topics for poetry to encourage emotion.
As everyone agrees Snaba is the best poem here, my own father passed away just before my reading of these works so it was especially hard hitting.
I didn’t quite get the arctic bar/apocalypse thing but I understand this spreads over multiple works so I’ll need to read more.
Nice little book
His use of current and recent themes such as Brexit and the pandemic were well executed - great topics for poetry to encourage emotion.
As everyone agrees Snaba is the best poem here, my own father passed away just before my reading of these works so it was especially hard hitting.
I didn’t quite get the arctic bar/apocalypse thing but I understand this spreads over multiple works so I’ll need to read more.
Nice little book
October 14, 2024
"Ends write themselves. But where to begin."
Well, I guess I'll begin by saying I think Don Paterson is one of the most important, playful, intelligent, and skilled poets writing in English today. While this isn't my favorite of his books, it contains enough strong work to put it in the "really liked it" category for me. In fact, two of the poems in this collection rank easily among his best work: "Snaba" and "August" are both perfectly executed. I have no doubt that "Snaba" in particular will become widely anthologized in the future if it isn't already. And even very short light "off the cuff" verses written by Don are often more amusing than the pages and pages of postmodern/experimental silly sauce churned out by legions of far less talented poets.
Well, I guess I'll begin by saying I think Don Paterson is one of the most important, playful, intelligent, and skilled poets writing in English today. While this isn't my favorite of his books, it contains enough strong work to put it in the "really liked it" category for me. In fact, two of the poems in this collection rank easily among his best work: "Snaba" and "August" are both perfectly executed. I have no doubt that "Snaba" in particular will become widely anthologized in the future if it isn't already. And even very short light "off the cuff" verses written by Don are often more amusing than the pages and pages of postmodern/experimental silly sauce churned out by legions of far less talented poets.
September 14, 2022
A new book of poetry is always a treat, so it's great to get my hands on this. Nice mix of humour, reflection and some quite heartfelt poems on the death of his father.
October 25, 2022
A sometimes wry and sometimes earnest and understandably sometimes gloomy return to form from one of our great contemporary poets
May 5, 2024
Have I just become a fan of this guy?
February 21, 2025
A witty, sardonic, profound and strange collection of poems from someone both wise in years and deeply in tune with the current moment. So much to be plumbed from its depths.
strong 8
strong 8
April 2, 2026
Modern, political and relevant in current times. Feels like a read that can be enjoyed by different generations.
It didn’t stop to surprise me.
I initially felt like “the arctic” theme is getting somewhat diluted but as I continued reading I realised it was there all along.
It didn’t stop to surprise me.
I initially felt like “the arctic” theme is getting somewhat diluted but as I continued reading I realised it was there all along.
August 27, 2023
good poetry - darkly funny and interesting turns of phrase
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews