Robert Burns

Robert Burns (1759-96) was born into a farming family in Ayrshire, Scotland. The publication in 1786 of his first book, Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish dialect, made him famous overnight and saw him fêted by Edinburgh society. But Burns made no money from his writing and quickly fell on hard times, returning to farming in Dumfries, and, when that failed, to work as an Excise officer. He devoted his final years to poetry and the writing of Scottish songs. Don Paterson was born in Dundee, Scotland. His first collection of poetry, Nil Nil (1993) won the Forward Poetry Prize for Best First Collection. His following collection, God's Gift to Women (1997) won the T. S. Eliot Prize and the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize. Don Paterson's poetry collection, Landing Light, won the 2001 Whitbread Poetry Award, and also received the 2003 T. S. Eliot Prize - making him the first poet to have won the award twice. His latest poetry collection, 40 Sonnets, has been shortlisted for the Saltire Poetry Book of the Year award. He works as a musician and editor, teaches at the University of St Andrews, and lives in Kirriemuir, Scotland.