Biography
Michael S. Glaser, Poet. 1943 – 2025
Michael Glaser was a beloved teacher, poet, mentor, husband, father, grandfather, and friend. He served as Poet Laureate of Maryland from 2004 – 2009. He was a Professor of English at St. Mary’s College of Maryland where he served as both a professor and an administrator from 1970 until his retirement in 2008. While at St. Mary’s, he co-founded and directed the annual Literary Festival as well as the VOICES literary reading series. Upon his retirement, he was named Professor Emeritus of English– a distinction he held until his death in 2025.
Glaser received numerous honors and awards for his lifelong dedication and service to poets and poetry. These include the Homer Dodge Endowed Award for Excellence in Teaching; the Columbia Merit Award from the Poetry Committee of the Greater Washington, D.C. area for his service to poetry; and Loyola College’s Andrew White Medal for his dedication to the intellectual and scholarly life, and for his commitment to sustaining the poetic tradition in the State of Maryland.
Glaser received his B.A. from Denison University and his M.A. and Ph.D. from Kent State University. He is survived by his beloved wife, the educator Kathleen W. Glaser; five children, Brian, Joshua, Daniel, Amira and Eva; and twelve grandchildren.
His obituary can be found here. He seems to have envisaged how he would pass in his poem Arc:
Arc
I
Illuminated by the arching light,
translucent wisps of clouds
float just off the island’s edge
And hang suspended until
catching the wind they dissolve
imperceptibly into air.
II
I hope it’s like that for me when I go,
the molecules of my spirit released
as delicately as that wisp of cloud,
then gathered up and embraced
by the gentle arms of grace.
© Estate of Michael S. Glaser.
Please do not use without permission.
Over 500 of Glaser’s poems have been published in such literary journals and newspapers as The American Scholar, New Letters, Prairie Schooner, The Christian Science Monitor, The Antioch Review, The Progressive Magazine, and Sacred Journey, as well as in numerous anthologies including Unsettling America (Viking Penguin), Outsiders (Milkweed Editions) and Light Gathering Poems (Holt).
His works include A Lover’s Eye (The Bunny & Crocodile Press) and In The Men’s Room and Other Poems which won the 1996 Painted Bride Quarterly chapbook competition, Being a Father (Forest Woods Media Productions, 2004) and Fire Before the Hands, which won the Anabiosis Press 2007 chapbook prize. Finishing Line Press published Remembering Eden in 2008, and in 2009 The Teacher’s Voice published his prize-winning Disrupting Consensus. In 2014, Seasonings Press published The Threat of Rain. The Threshold of Light received the poetry Chapbook award from Bright Hill Press in 2019. And Elemental Things received publication as a Poetry Box Chapbook prize winner in 2022.
In addition, Glaser has edited three anthologies: The Cooke Book (1989), Weavings2000: The Maryland Millennial Anthology and Come Celebrate with Me, a memorial tribute to Lucille Clifton (2011). He also served as co-editor, with Kevin Young, of the prize winning Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton (BOA, 2012).
Michael S. Glaser, Poet. 1943 – 2025
Michael Glaser was a beloved teacher, poet, mentor, husband, father, grandfather, and friend. He served as Poet Laureate of Maryland from 2004 – 2009. He was a Professor of English at St. Mary’s College of Maryland where he served as both a professor and an administrator from 1970 until his retirement in 2008. While at St. Mary’s, he co-founded and directed the annual Literary Festival as well as the VOICES literary reading series. Upon his retirement, he was named Professor Emeritus of English– a distinction he held until his death in 2025.
Glaser received numerous honors and awards for his lifelong dedication and service to poets and poetry. These include the Homer Dodge Endowed Award for Excellence in Teaching; the Columbia Merit Award from the Poetry Committee of the Greater Washington, D.C. area for his service to poetry; and Loyola College’s Andrew White Medal for his dedication to the intellectual and scholarly life, and for his commitment to sustaining the poetic tradition in the State of Maryland.
Glaser received his B.A. from Denison University and his M.A. and Ph.D. from Kent State University. He is survived by his beloved wife, the educator Kathleen W. Glaser; five children, Brian, Joshua, Daniel, Amira and Eva; and twelve grandchildren.
His obituary can be found here. He seems to have envisaged how he would pass in his poem Arc:
Arc
I
Illuminated by the arching light,
translucent wisps of clouds
float just off the island’s edge
And hang suspended until
catching the wind they dissolve
imperceptibly into air.
II
I hope it’s like that for me when I go,
the molecules of my spirit released
as delicately as that wisp of cloud,
then gathered up and embraced
by the gentle arms of grace.
© Estate of Michael S. Glaser.
Please do not use without permission.
Over 500 of Glaser’s poems have been published in such literary journals and newspapers as The American Scholar, New Letters, Prairie Schooner, The Christian Science Monitor, The Antioch Review, The Progressive Magazine, and Sacred Journey, as well as in numerous anthologies including Unsettling America (Viking Penguin), Outsiders (Milkweed Editions) and Light Gathering Poems (Holt).
His works include A Lover’s Eye (The Bunny & Crocodile Press) and In The Men’s Room and Other Poems which won the 1996 Painted Bride Quarterly chapbook competition, Being a Father (Forest Woods Media Productions, 2004) and Fire Before the Hands, which won the Anabiosis Press 2007 chapbook prize. Finishing Line Press published Remembering Eden in 2008, and in 2009 The Teacher’s Voice published his prize-winning Disrupting Consensus. In 2014, Seasonings Press published The Threat of Rain. The Threshold of Light received the poetry Chapbook award from Bright Hill Press in 2019. And Elemental Things received publication as a Poetry Box Chapbook prize winner in 2022.
In addition, Glaser has edited three anthologies: The Cooke Book (1989), Weavings2000: The Maryland Millennial Anthology and Come Celebrate with Me, a memorial tribute to Lucille Clifton (2011). He also served as co-editor, with Kevin Young, of the prize winning Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton (BOA, 2012).
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