Ian Patterson taught English for almost twenty years at Queens' College, Cambridge, where he is now a Life Fellow. His academic writing includes Guernica and Total War (Profile, 2007) and numerous essays on twentieth-century writers; his translations include Fourier, The Theory of the Four Movements (Cambridge University Press, 1996) and Proust, Finding Time Again (Penguin, 2004). He has published over a dozen works of poetry, including Time to Get Here: Selected Poems 1969-2002 (Salt, 2003) and Marsh Air (Equipage, 2019). His poem 'The Plenty of Nothing' was awarded the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem in 2017. He lives in Suffolk.

The Collected Poems of Ian Patterson pulls together the complete poetic works of the inimitable Patterson, from his debut in 1975 to last year's Shell Vestige Disputed. Included here is his brilliant Forward Prize winning poem 'The Plenty of Nothing' alongside a career and poetics that defies time. Ian Patterson's work is some of the most beautiful and important poetry ever written, making this a brilliant, poignant collection. Collected Poems is the best place to discover, or revisit, Patterson's poetry.