I am guessing you have never heard of Don Paterson. I had not either, until my high school English teacher slapped a copy of Rain on my desk. Up until this point, I only had a dim conception of what poetry was: we have all read a sonnet, maybe even glanced at The Waste Land, or something set during World War One. At the time, I saw it as just less interesting than the much more narrative-focused drama or novel. Rain changed that.
Accessible in both language and technique, it opened my eyes to a whole new method of communication. Its poems range from tongue-in-cheek to bracingly personal, and all require a second read to even start getting to grips with what Paterson is telling us.
I remember being enamoured by ‘Two Trees,’ the collection’s opening poem, as I learned about conceits—extended metaphors used for the length of entire poems. At first, it comes across as a faintly sad tale about some vegetation, yet we cannot dismiss the scent of deeper meaning. Despite Paterson’s claim at the end that “trees are all this poem is about” (nice try), we start to intuit what it is he is really talking about.
What I find so wonderful about this type of communication is that it is emotionally led—the poem made me feel sad, so I started to think about reasons why, naturally leading me to deeper analysis. You do not need a vast knowledge of poetic technique to navigate these poems—just an emotional range and a sense of imaginative curiosity (looking back, amazing to think I got anything out of this as a teenager).
The rest of the collection is just as rewarding. I could not recommend this enough for someone interested in poetry, or who just wants to try something new.
Photo by William Krause on Unsplash