This video is an edition of Writers’ Stories, featuring poet Don Paterson, in an interview recorded in the open air at the Edinburgh International Book Festival.

Karina Dent asks him how he knows when a collection of poetry is finished. He says there is a sense that you have mined out a particular seam, but all his work is part of a continuing process so it can be a quite arbitrary decision.

Don Paterson says the role of the poet used to be to articulate the things that were important to people, that they could not articulate themselves, but he is not sure how much modern poets honour that expectation. He dislikes doing poetry readings because it forces too close a connection between the poet and his material, describing a kind of parental responsibility for his poems. He sets them up and sends them off into the world. This video recording lasts 7 minutes and 47 seconds.