Glen’s restless activity is rooted in a marriage which has lasted nearly half a century: the ‘Celebrating 40 Years’ Akros checklist is dedicated to “Margaret Who Makes Akros Possible”. And indeed she is there at every turn, not only in photographic records, but sometimes as editor or co-editor, as typist, as supporter and as Muse—human love, with Margaret at its centre, is the wellspring of many of Glen’s best poems.

There is much talk these days of self-publishing, simply because modern technology makes this practicable. Glen self-published before anyone else knew how: his entire poetic oeuvre has been presented, designed and published by himself. No researcher will ever need to make checklists of his work: his own checklists include photographs, cover designs and, of course, accurate and well-organised facts.

There are downsides to this, however. Glen has been his own editor, his own marketer. As a poet, he has not had an enthusiastic publisher to sing his praises or even (dare I say it?) to suggest changes. He has been reviewed—of course—and often judiciously. However, it is different reviewing a respected publisher, someone who may himself choose to print (or not) the work of the reviewer. I am not suggesting that this has led to inflated praise but it may have created somewhat neutral comments, a certain tip-toeing around the text. He deserves better.

Because poetry matters to Glen: deeply and passionately. He does not write at whim. Poems, he asserts in his Autobiography, “come from areas of our psyche of which we have little or no direct knowledge or understanding” and he does not write without “the feeling they are there to be written”—“given” to the poet. Even articulating his own theories, this wryly thoughtful man combines confidence with diffidence: “Many poets of serious intention have built noble structures of theory but it may be that even when very influential, they are of greatest value to the poet who constructed them in giving him intellectual supports for his poetry.”