Stanley Cook Poetry

Poems for Adults

  • Form Photograph (Phoenix Pamphlet Press, 1971)
  • The Northern Seasons (Smith/Doorstep Books)
  • Signs of Life (Morten, 1972)
  • Alphabet (Harry Chambers/Peterloo Poets, 1976)
  • Staff Photograph (Harry Chambers/Peterloo Poets, 1976)
  • Words Beyond a Cornfield (The Keepsake Press, 1979)
  • Selected Poems 1972-86 (Littlewood Press, 1986)
  • Woods Beyond a Cornfield: Collected Poems (Smith/Doorstep Books, 1995)

Praise for Signs of Life

“What holds one’s attention from the outset in Stanley Cook’s work is the sense that for him to write poetry is a moral adventure . . .his writing shows an impressive delicacy, both of feeling and style.” Times Literary Supplement

“underivative . . . unassuming . . . authentic.” Robert Nye, The Times

“I like this book. There are plenty of memorable accuracies.” Douglas Dunn, Encounter

In the Media

Woods Beyond a Cornfield was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2014.

Picture of a Cornfield

I stop, whatever exhibition is on,
Before this part of the permanent collection, Wind it a little and shake it like a watch Beyond repair that for a moment goes again.
This is the path the farmer ploughed up When he sowed the corn, making a fool Of the signpost showing a right of way, Short-cut to the station people have trodden back.
Now at a distance their heads bob about Among the ripened, rustling, foaming ears;
The miracle they made themselves stops them drowning.
The sky is blue and the trees are fully dressed In dusty dark green leaves; wild pansies Show their faces between the stalks of corn And a rabbit panics out of the hedge.
People I know approach along the path And almost reach the point where its beaten soil, Like a trick explained, emerges from the field.
Before they speak, the walls of the gallery Fade in again, as either the pull of the city Asserts itself or I draw back in self-defence, Finding as usual nothing to fit the question How came I and the painter, whose dates are all I know of him, in the same field in a different field At the same time at a different time, Feeling the same? Was everyone once there?