Duncan Glen
Professor Duncan Glen was born in Cambuslang and left school at 15 to become a management trainee and apprentice compositor in Glasgow and Kirkcaldy, before gaining a scholarship to Edinburgh College of Art in 1954. His studies were interrupted by National Service, during which Glen worked as an interpreter of photographs in the RAF. He went on to be employed by Her Majesty’s Stationery Office as a typographic designer and as a freelance designer for publishers in London.
He lectured in design at the University of Lancashire and Nottingham Trent University, and was granted the title Emeritus Professor at Nottingham Trent in 1987. He was elected as a fellow of the Chartered Society of Designers in 1997 and was awarded the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Letters by Paisley University in 1998.
Glen was editor of the Akros Publications for over 40 years and Akros magazine for 25, providing a vehicle for Scottish literature in an international context. As well as poetry, he produced an impressive range of texts in other areas, including an influential history of typography. His book, Hugh MacDiarmid and the Scottish Renaissance (1964) was the first full critical study of the poet who perhaps influenced him most. In turn, the book did a great deal for MacDiarmid’s reputation.
Glen’s own poetry was generally written in Scots, starting with Kythings and other poems in 1969 through to his Collected Poems 1965–2005 (2006).
To mark Glen’s 75th birthday, poets Tom Hubbard and Philip Pacey edited the book, A Festschrift for Duncan Glen at Seventy-Five, consisting of reminiscences and poetry from a range of names. The book was presented to him at a gathering at the Scottish Poetry Library in 2008, a few months before his death.
Read the poems
Further Information
Well-researched American exhibition catalogue on 40 years of Glen’s output as editor of Akros (2002)
National Library of Scotland: Duncan Glen’s papers and the Akros archive
University of Edinburgh: Duncan Glen papers (includes information about the poet, and details of holdings)
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