@TomCook24

poet critic person · typographer @FaberBooks (and elsewhere) · contributor @theTLS (and elsewhere) · typesetting commissions: [email protected]

the-tls.co.uk/authors/tom-cook/
Joined May 2012
  • Tweets2.8K
  • Following1.2K
  • Followers5.4K
229Media
My most recent piece for @theTLS is a review of Helen Vendler’s final book of essays on poetry. A truly brilliant collection overall, though she was wrong about Ocean Vuong, who is – as we know – shit. GET IT HERE: the-tls.com/literature/poetr…

Following the golden thread

A critic with ‘an almost devout passion for good poems’

the-tls.com
4
5
40
3,114
Tom Cook retweeted
Tom Cook@TomCook24Sep 14
Did Les Murray write the ultimate late-life-diagnosis poem? Click here to find out!
8
1
42
2,535
never logging off this website
The Extreme Music Enthusiast
@TheExtremeMusi1Oct 25
Around 1500, Hieronymus Bosch painted sheet music on a sinner's bare butt in hell. 500 years later, someone transcribed and performed it. Now you can hear the original butt song from hell.
9
775
4
10,954
189,830
happy October the 24th to all who celebrate
39
3,347
87
18,338
294,543
If you've heard me wanging on about John Clare recently, here's the reason - I've been writing about him for the @LRB. Read! Enjoy! lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v48/n19/…
8
68
1,556
Further to ‘Shakespeare authorship tests are [redacted]’, I’ll just repost this, from @TheTLS letters page last year:
Tom Cook@TomCook245 Sep 2025
Thanks to @TheTLS for publishing this, which is the last thing I’ll say about Brian Vickers, Gabriel Egan (what a charming man), and the tedium of ‘attribution studies’
1
3
400
Fine, I’ll say it again. The body of surviving texts used for *all* claims of this kind is far too small for any actual linguist or statistician to take seriously. Whether it’s Brian Vickers (see reply) or the New Oxford Shakespeare, it’s built on sand theguardian.com/culture/2026…

Scholars conclude ‘beyond doubt’ that Shakespeare was main author of Edward III

Exclusive: Play anonymously published in 1596 was collaboration between Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe, according to computer analysis

theguardian.com
14
17
4
189
108,011
I covered the previous round of claims – made to shore up Brian Vickers’s concocted new edition of Thomas Kyd – in the TLS last year: the-tls.com/literature-by-re…

Questions of attribution

Shakespearean studies have entered a rabbit hole

the-tls.com
1
1
22
8,964
It led to a delightful war on the letters page. This was the last thing I said about it all: xitter.cf/TomCook24/status/19639…
Tom Cook@TomCook245 Sep 2025
Thanks to @TheTLS for publishing this, which is the last thing I’ll say about Brian Vickers, Gabriel Egan (what a charming man), and the tedium of ‘attribution studies’
17
4,091
Tom Cook retweeted
Tom Cook@TomCook242 Sep 2024
Happy Monday from the one and only Thom Gunn:
13
3
93
11,910
theguardian.com/books/2026/o…

Douglas Dunn obituary

Poet and writer whose collection Elegies channelled grief into exquisite poetry and won the Whitbread book of the year

theguardian.com
6
2
32
3,108
Larkin’s library colleague and fellow poet, Douglas Dunn has died. RIP.
9
49
3
159
6,306
Ach, what a loss. I lived down the road from Terry Street when I was a student at Hull, and he was so fondly remembered there. ‘I wish him grass’
don paterson@donpatersonpoetOct 17
Very sorry to report that Douglas Dunn has passed away. He was the finest Scottish poet of the post-war period. Dougie was also someone we knew and loved as a dear friend, mentor and teacher, and he will be deeply missed.
2
15
799
People who like CS Lewis more than me are unsophisticated, simple naïfs. People who like him less than me are tryhard pseuds. Only I like CS Lewis the correct amount.
19
102
6
1,135
19,087
Tom Cook retweeted
Zito@_ZeetsOct 11
Went back to her Paris Review interview
1
130
4
1,077
28,044
'Nashville Skyline' is the situation when Bob Dylan acts like it's perfectly normal that his new LP is a wildly horny 28-minute Country & Western album wherein he sings like a particularly hash-drunk Dean Martin, and we all agree that it's perfect. Throw my ticket out the window.
16
47
8
713
24,597
Any bibliophile Larkinophile out there: this is your Christmas come early. newversereview.substack.com/…
1
18
3
74
6,749
Yoghs and wynns are the true test of a font’s versatility. There you go: double nerd
MedievalistMatt
@medievalistmattSep 30
It's uncanny how accurate this is
4
366
65 years ago today Robert Shelton’s review ran in the New York Times, kickstarting the series of events that led to Bob Dylan signing a Columbia recording contract less than a month later. We’ll never know how his career would have played out if this review hadn’t been written.
11
48
3
251
6,828
historians writing about england in 1640-41 love interspersing their primary narratives with coy little asides about "an obscure backbencher from Cambridge named Oliver Cromwell"
48
255
48
7,271
198,032
I'm back in @PoetryFound with a longread about what "a writer's life" looks like, based on 20+ books with "a writer's life" (or similar) as title or subtitle. This was initially an Oxford lecture in 2024; I'm delighted to see it published! Read for free: poetryfoundation.org/article…
2
25
1
127
7,994
Load more