David Cooke was born in the UK in 1953 to a family that comes from the West of Ireland. He won a Gregory Award in 1977, while still an undergraduate at Nottingham University. After publishing his first full poetry collection in 1984, he then wrote no poetry for two decades, during which time he was Head of Modern Languages in a large comprehensive school in Cleethorpes. Subsequently, he earned his living as an online bookseller, but is now happily retired and living in Swindon. He is married with four grown-up children. His poems have been extensively anthologised and published online and in print, by Agenda, Allegro, Ambit, And Other Poems, Black Sheep Journal, Carillon, Cyphers, The Dock, Dream Catcher, The French Literary Review, Glasgow Review of Books, Hinterland, Ink, Sweat & Tears, The Irish Times, The Lake, London Grip, Lunar Poetry, Message in a Bottle,  The Morning Star, The Ofi Press Magazine, Paris Lit  Up, Penniless Press, The Poetry Shed, Prole, Proletarian Poetry, Screech Owl, Stachtes (Greece), The Stare’s Nest, and Your Last Phone Call, among others.
As the editor of The High Window, David Cooke can be contacted at thehighwindowpress.com

Poetry collections by David Cooke:
Staring at a Hoopoe;​ Reel to Reel; Brueghel’s Dancers; In the Distance; Work Horses; A Slow Blues, New and Selected Poems;  A Murmuration; After Hours

Staring at a Hoopoe 

Neil Leadbeater reviews 'Staring at a Hoopoe' in Quill and Parchment (USA)
"Cooke delivers strong, intellectually satisfying work that is both accessible and rewarding to the general reader.
[...]
It is fitting that the collection should conclude with ‘Man on a Wire’. Here, Cooke shows us how life is a balancing act, one that is not without risk, but, as he says in his opening poem, we have to ‘feel the fear, and do it’. This is where the collection comes full circle and, like all circles, it is a symbol of Cooke perfecting his art..."

William Bedford writes in London Grip:
"In David Cooke’s new collection, the eponymous 'Staring at a Hoopoe' has an encounter between an old man whose eyes ‘are stoical,/but lit by a sense/that all is not determined’ and a bird ‘whose piping/mnemonic call/is like a final summons’. ‘Caught in the moment’, we are told in an epigraph from Montale that this ‘hilarious slandered bird’ is ‘ambivalent’, though whether this is the bird’s view or the poem’s isn’t clear. Some form of ‘final summons’ is common to both bird and man...."

Emma Lee comments: 
"'Staring at a Hoopoe' understands the tensions between seeking security and seeking out new experiences. Each poem balances idea and expression, showing an understanding and deft handling of craft."

ISBN: 978-1-913329-08-2
​2020
Paperback, 148 x 210mm,80 pages.
RRP £10.00
OFFER: £6.00

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Reel to Reel

David Cooke’s sixth collection looks back at his life, his roots in a family from the West of Ireland. He revisits his years spent in the fishing port of Grimsby, journeys to other lands with other cultures, and the people, arts and music that have inspired him on the way.

Neil Fullwood reviews 'Reel to Reel' in London Grip, 2019
"The world Cooke thrusts us into here is one of hard graft that leaves the skin burning with Atlantic cold, the fingers flensed and calloused, the tongue roughened and the senses yearning for beer (“the liquid rises / as if spelling danger, or re-establishing / an equilibrium”) or the affirmation of a woman’s embrace. A world where a galley cook ruminates that he’s a “five-star chef / approved by Heinz”, knowing full well that all his patrons want is “a slice of white to mop up / greasy yolks and gravy”. 

ISBN 9781907435768
​2019
Paperback, 148 x 210mm, 77 pages
​£10.00 RRP

OFFER: £5.00
THIS PAYPAL BUTTON IS FOR UK ORDERS ONLY
​We regret that if an overseas order is sent to us, we can refund only 90% of the payment made, because there will be a 10% handling charge.