Wordplay
Paterson’s poetry is infamous for inclusion of wordplay. As Philip Hobsbaum notes in Contemporary Poets, “there are more wordplays, allusions, puns and aporia that would serve most other poets over a lifetime” to be found in just the 171 pages of Paterson’s first three published collections. This playfulness with language itself becomes a thematic unifying element covering the body of work of the poet through the slow revelation that he is not a poet conducive to thematic connectivity. In a way, Paterson is the Hamlet of his generation in that, like the Shakespeare’s brooding prince, he uses wordplay as paradox: it serves both to alienate direct connection to the themes pursued in his poetry while at the same time urging closer analysis. The gaming of his verse becomes an exercise in decoding introspection, Hamlet-style.
Scots as Citizens of the World
There is something not exactly unique, but idiosyncratic about Scottish poets that serves to make them almost by definition viewed first and foremost as nationalistic. This may be related to the Scottish dialect that or it may simply be an immature reckoning that all Scottish poets are simply the sons of Robert Burns in some way. Whatever the cause, the effect is deadening to the eagerness of some Scots to reach a more global audience. They first have to find a way to make their poetry reach beyond tightly restricted borders. Throughout his poetry, Paterson focuses upon things which are not necessarily unique to Scotland, but are idiosyncratically identified with it by outsiders: lush greenery, a mania for soccer, and an overabundance of the word “wee” to describe things which are small. And yet, in reading many of his poems—even something quite distinctively “Scottish” such as “Nil Nil”—he manages to push the subject beyond those borders and speak to a more global audience. It is another example of the persistence of paradox in the poet’s verse: unqualified Scottishness that is at the same time not limited to mere Scottishness.
The Person and the Persona
Paradox continues in a third major thematic unifying element in Paterson’s poetry. Time and time again, he writes narratives that place the speaker at odds with the general acceptance that the speaker in a poem is a representation of the poet. The poet does appear throughout Paterson’s body of work, but often in disguise. Narrative adventures are designed to create a person behind which the poet can hide, but by the end he cannot seem to help but himself; the marks gets torn from the face and the poet reveals himself in the end. Sometimes, it even starts off that way: “Rain” begins with a first-person speaker before evolving into a narrative in which the persona becomes characters in movie scene taking place in the rain. Paterson shows a sinewy ability to slide in and out of his multiple personae while managing at all times to make sure the mask eventually is lowered at least enough for the revelation to take place.
