Duncan Glen 1933-2008

I was saddened to hear yesterday that the poet, publisher, critic, designer and typographer Duncan Glen had died. He was not someone I knew well, although I did meet him once or twice. My contact with him came through the Scottish Poetry Library, with which he was closely involved. Indeed, he designed many SPL publications, including the first gathering of poems I ever worked on, Variations on a new song: Poems from the Holyrood Poetry Link Scheme. He was the founder of Akros Publications and the magazine Zed2O, which is celebrated in WN Herbert's poem "Talking Water Blues". Duncan was a significant force in Scottish and Scots language letters and will be sorely missed. Colin Will, who knew him well, and Rob Mackenzie have both posted tributes. There is a full biography of Duncan on the Akros web pages.

Reginald Shepherd, 1963-2008

In common with many in the poetry blogosphere, I was shocked and sadened to read that the American poet, critic and blogger Reginald Shepherd died this week, aged only 45. The news came to me through Ron Silliman's blog, which is fitting, as it was a link from a post of his that first took me to Shepherd's blog.

Shepherd blogged with clarity, warmth and intelligence, always at length. The post of his that first alerted me to the quality of his reflection was his superb post On Difficulty in Poetry: a revision. Not the grinding, pointless, tiresome polemic about "accessibility" vs "difficulty" one often hears, just real thinking and insight.

I can't improve on or add to the tributes to him by other bloggers, some of whom knew him other than through this peculiar, wonderful, infuriating medium, to which he brought a great deal of sanity. Read them, but be sure to read his writing.