Since his debut, ''Nil Nil'', won the Forward Prize for Best First Collection in 1993, Don Paterson has lit up the poetry scene in the U.K. His dazzling, intensely lyric and luminous verse has delighted readers ever since, and won many awards along the way. ''God's Gift Women'' took the T. S. Eliot Prize in 1997, ''Landing Light'' won it again in 2003 and the Whitbread Award besides, and ''Rain'' (2009), his most recent collection, won the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry. This selection, drawn from twenty years of work, is made by the author himself and includes not only those poems from his four single volumes, but his thrilling and original adaptations of the poems of Antonio Machado and Rainer Maria Rilke. For any readers unfamiliar with Don Paterson's work, this ''Selected Poems'' offers the perfect introduction to this most captivating of writers; and for fans, an essential gathering from a master craftsman.