Poetry, unlike music, is a meta-art, and relies upon non-physical structures for the production of its effects. In its case, the medium is syntax, gr…

- Don Paterson

We turn from the light to see.

- Don Paterson

Mediocre art is far worse than bad art. Bad art does not waste our time.

- Don Paterson

Imagine your shadow burning off the page / As the dear world and the dead word disengage

- Don Paterson

There's no fury more righteous than that of a sinner accused of the wrong sin.

- Don Paterson

So we start with an oversignifying reader. Those texts that appear to reward this reader for this additional investment - text that we find exception…

- Don Paterson

Inconveniently, books are all the pages in them, not just the ones you choose to read.

- Don Paterson

Lakoff's idea is that most of our thought is guided by underlying conceptual mappings between two domains that share some content, that overlap in th…

- Don Paterson

This capacity for oversignifying, for reading in, is precisely what poets tap into, both in their own practice and in the poem the give to the reader…

- Don Paterson