Duncan Glen

Scottish poet and academic, 1933–2008

Professor Duncan Munro Glen (11 January 1933 – 20 September 2008) was a Scottish poet, literary editor and Emeritus Professor of Visual Communication at Nottingham Trent University. He became known with his first full length book, Hugh MacDiarmid and the Scottish Renaissance. His many verse collections included from Kythings and other poems (1969), In Appearances (1971), Realities Poems (1980), Selected Poems 1965–1990 (1991), Selected New Poems 1987–1996 (1998) and Collected Poems 1965–2005 (2006). His Autobiography of a Poet appeared with Ramsay Head Press in 1986. He edited Akros magazine for 51 numbers from August 1965 to October 1983. His work to promote Scottish poets and artists included Hugh MacDiarmid and Ian Hamilton Finlay, among others. Some of his poetry was translated into Italian.

Glen was born in Westburn, Cambuslang, South Lanarkshire, Scotland, the son of a white collar worker in The Steel Company of Scotland, Hallside, near Newton Station. He was educated at West Coats Primary School in Cambuslang, then at Rutherglen Academy, but left at 15 to become an office boy and apprentice printer in Glasgow and Kirkcaldy, before studying at Edinburgh College of Art. After national service in the RAF as a photographic interpreter, he became a typographic designer with the HMSO and did freelance typographic design for publishers in London. Glen then moved into graphic design education, first at Watford College of Technology. After a brief spell as an editor in Glasgow with Robert Gibson & Sons Ltd, educational publishers, at what was to become Preston Polytechnic, he was appointed Professor of Visual Communication at what would be Nottingham Trent University. Glen served on the Council of National Academic Awards. Glen founded Akros Publications in 1965, to publish Scottish poetry and literary criticism; from 1965 to 2006 over 250 works appeared under the Akros imprint. They included poetry, critical and historical studies, Akros magazine (51 issues) and Zed 2 0 (19 numbers), and fiction by Robert McLellan, John Herdman and others. His aim as editor of Akros magazine was to publish modern Scottish poetry in Scots and English, cutting across the "fighting cliques" of the time. Alongside his own poetry, he produced several studies of Scottish literature, anthologies, and a range of publications in other areas, including a history of typography, the definitive history of Cambuslang, a place for which he retained a affection, and an illustrated history of Kirkcaldy, where he latterly lived. Glen was elected a Fellow of the Chartered Society of Designers in 1977. In 1974 and 1998 he received awards from the Scottish Arts Council "for services to Scottish literature" and "in recognition of his many years as a publisher and editor and entrepreneurial activities for Scottish literature". In 1991 he received the Howard Sergeant Memorial Award "in recognition of long and devoted services to poetry". In 2000 he was awarded the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Letters by Paisley University.