Don Paterson’s 40 Sonnets has won the Costa poetry award, it was revealed on BBC Radio 4’s Front Row arts programme on Monday night. The judges - poet Julia Copus, poetry critic Adam Newey, and Melanie Prince, co-owner of the Poetry Bookshop in Hay-on-Wye - said 40 Sonnets, published by Faber & Faber, contained “graceful, moving and intelligent poems that give the impression of effortless achievement”. Some of the sonnets take a traditional form, some are highly experimental, and they are addressed to friends and strangers, the living and the dead, to children, poets, musicians and dogs, as well to as the author himself.

Don Paterson was born in Dundee in 1963. His previous poetry collections include Nil Nil, God’s Gift to Women and The Eyes which was shortlisted for the 1999 Whitbread poetry award - which he subsequently won in 2003 for Landing Light. Rain, his most recent collection, won the Forward prize for best collection. He was awarded the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry in 2009. He teaches at the University of St Andrews, and also works as an editor and musician. He lives in Edinburgh.

The other shortlisted Costa poets were Andrew McMillan, Kate Miller, and Neil Rollinson. Paterson is also on the shortlist for this year’s TS Eliot prize, the winner of which will be announced in a week’s time.