Glenn Storhaug, 1947-2026

We are so sad to hear that our dear friend Glenn Storhaug has died suddenly of a heart attack. Glenn, who, of course, ran Five Seasons Press in Madley & latterly Hereford , was associated with the Poetry Bookshop from its foundation by Anne Stevenson & Michael Farley.

But it was his admiration for the poetry of our immediate predecessor, Alan Halsey, which led to lifelong friendship &, over the years, many collaborative publications. One can imagine how a proof-reader & publisher might relish Glenn’s observation  upon Alan’s work: “Each word and punctuation mark and space is in its dwelt-on place right from the start”. While, in Printing Poetry Aloud, his essay for Matrix, Glenn found himself drawn, after having set the minimalist text of Alan’s Loop in our Days, to reflect upon how the compositor’s contribution amplifies (in the sheer quantity of leaded blank space surrounding) the poem.

I remember one day Glenn’s arrival at the shop being announced by an involuntary cry of horror at a displayed book’s misaligned title that he’d spotted, at five paces, on entering the doorway! He immediately apologized for his pomposity as, it seems to me, for him generosity was almost a compulsion. Most remarkably so, perhaps, in the dark place of his illness; where others would have found his missed diagnosis unforgiveable, instead, he chose positivity. 

Another dramatic entrance & another illustration of his ability to turn what, for me, would seem a chore to a joy…

How could anyone who was there forget his turn as Monsieur Hulot bursting through the shop door, in a cacophony of bells, brandishing a battered briefcase & a wildly flapping umbrella, before introducing a somewhat startled Michael Horovitz’s poetry reading?

For Melanie & myself, Glenn seemed like the shop’s beneficent tutelary spirit. A conduit to its history, evoked by fabulous talk & crucially, in our early days, with his unfailing encouragement to believe in our proprietorship. Even if, with time, it has become obvious that it is the shop itself that calls the shots! That being so, though we will miss him greatly, the shelves will continue to invite new wonderers at the printed word to leaf through his glorious books.