Books of poetry
Glenn is a writer whose books have been written “on the side”, that is, he had a day job, and his books were written outside of his day job. Outside of that again, he is a writer of poetry. The poems occur, and they are put aside to accumulate, and every ten years or so he produces a collection.
Poems constitute a different mode of expression. They are not a planned explanation or an enunciation of an argument; rather, they are the striving to give form to a feeling that is inchoate. This began when Glenn was nine years old, and has continued throughout his life, in parallel with other life activities.
Glenn was influenced by the poets he came across, by educational intent or by accident – the Australian colonial balladeers, including Henry Kendall. Then there were Bruce Dawe, T.S. Eliot, Gerard Manley Hopkins, W.B. Yeats, Robert Lowell, William Blake, Shakespeare, Basho, Kahlil Gibran, Walt Whitman and many more.
He was also influenced by lyrics from rock and roll. But he never sought to be a recipient of influence. He was influenced in the same way that a sponge is influenced by water; it just soaks in. He was looking to express inchoate feelings elegantly, in whatever way they surfaced.
The published volumes consist of:
• Flames in the Open (2007)
• Love and Armour (2007)
• Volume 4: I in the Stream (2017)
• Volume 3: That Was Then (2019).
The perversity of the sequencing may be noted. There were reasons (there are always reasons).
A new volume was published in 2021 through Cyberwit, a publisher in India: The Way Is Open. Later Glenn published the book himself: see below.
Glenn is sensitive to poems being sent out into the world alone, so the books include stories about the contexts in which the poems were written. He is of the view that poems and their contexts fit together like yin fits together with yang.
It should also be noted that the book To the Bush and Back to Business (see Reflections on Experience) includes a considerable number of poems and short stories – it was a boundary that needed to be breached – and this is noted in the collection, Volume 3: That Was Then.
Another comment: The first two collections, which consist mostly of poems from the years he spent living at Horseshoe Creek, Kyogle, show the unabashed influence of the I Ching (the Richard Wilhelm edition which was published in the year he was born, 1950).
Flames in the Open and Love and Armour were both compiled at the same time, the late 1980s, at his house in Horseshoe Creek, Kyogle, but they were not published until technology caught up and enabled the enterprise, nearly 20 years later.
Availability of books: The links near each book take you to my Spotlight page on the Lulu.com website, from where my books may be purchased. They are print-on-demand, and wherever you are globally, they are printed and posted in or near your country. Enjoy.
View a sample from the book: Click here
Flames in the Open
This book was published in 2007, although the poems had been compiled two decades earlier. He added the stories when the book was published.
The poems go back to when Glenn was living in Sydney, and onwards to Glenn’s life in the bush. The theme is about fire: “Sometimes the truth is in the fire, and you sit before it with bare hands. Are you going to retrieve it? You must; you do. And therefore the years shine. And maybe you are burned a little, but you have no apologies to make.”
Published 2007. Paperback, 48 pages. ISBN 978 0 980 40451 7
e-book ISBN 978 0 6480811 0 4
To see a sample of the book: Click here
Love and Armour
The poems in this collection span the same 20+ years as Flames in the Open. They relate to love and the protection we need from the calamities it sometimes brings us. They span Glenn’s shift from suburban frustration to revolutionary zeal and back to a point of deemed balance. They concern relationships that worked, if but for a time, and relationships that were never going to work. He ends with the sentiment: “No matter the cruel sky, watch the slow burn of irrepressible light”.
The format of the book is the same as in Flames in the Open – poems plus autobiographical stories that provide context.
Published 2007. Paperback, 111 pages. ISBN 978 0 6480811 1 1
e-book ISBN 978 0 6487797 5 9
View a sample of the book: Click here
I in the Stream: Poems, Volume IV
This book is a collection of poems, intended as the fourth volume from the author, with Volume 3 to come later. It includes short poems and long poems. There are poems about writing poetry, poems about living, and poems about observing life. The poet may look with a hard eye at times, but his intention is always to encourage the heart.
On the back cover, along with a picture of his favourite tree, he wrote: “It is becoming clearer. First light falling on sinews of tree. I say ‘My tree’ just so that people know that I am protecting it. In my head, I say ‘Tree. Sun’, because it is becoming clearer.”
Published 2017. Paperback, 72 pages. ISBN 978 0 6480811 3 5
e-book ISBN 978 0 6487797 6 6
Extracts from the book: Click here
Volume 3: That Was Then
This book (the belated Volume 3) is about five stages in a writer’s young life, and the poems written in this time. It starts with him as a school-boy, learning to write in poetic form. He grows older and leaves school. Now there is a greater urgency about understanding life, determining what is good, and expressing it fittingly. He enters the workforce, where poetry is pushed into a corner. Then he has an accident on a motor bike – he is knocked off and seriously injured. It takes time to mend. And it comes to this: he resolves to leave the city, to make a new life in the hills. The book includes over 100 poems, plus story about the writer’s life.
Published 2019. Paperback, 221 pages. ISBN 978 0 6480811 5 9
(Not available as e-book.)
View a sample of the book: Click here
The Way Is Open
This is Glenn’s fifth book of poems. It was first produced in 2020 with an Indian publishing house, Cyberwit. The poems in this collection were selected to illustrate three phases of life –Young, Living, and Firm Ground. There was a dribble of poetry throughout the years, because for the making of poems you can create modest pockets of sufficient room. Eventually, one hopes to stand on firm ground.
The poems at times show the influence of the I Ching (the Book of Changes), which calls one to be “steadfast and upright” through turmoil and uncertainty. Glenn has been engaged with the I Ching (and the Tao Te Ching) for over four decades.
Published 2022 by G.P. Martin Publishing. Paperback, 54 pages.
ISBN 978 0 6488433 6 8 paperback only.