Andrew Lansdown

Andrew has begun a FELLOW WRITERS’ page on his website in honour of various Australian writers who are among his friends and acquaintances. The first writer to be included is the poet and novelist, Hal Colebatch. Have a look. More writers to follow.

In 2007 the Australian Haiku Society appointed the haiku poet John Bird to conduct a survey of “haiku definitions” as used by haiku poets in Australia. John recently asked Andrew for his definition of haiku. Andrew offered two definitions, both of which were posted on the Australian Haiku Society’s website, HaikuOz, on 31 March 2009:

(1) “Haiku are poems modelled on the seventeen-syllable three-line poems of the ancient Japanese. Being poems, haiku are a form of literature and may employ literary techniques and may be judged by literary standards. Generally speaking, haiku stir emotion and stimulate reflection in the reader through simple precise objective depictions of things in nature.”

(2)
“Haiku are pebbles
poets lob into the pond
of our emotions.”

© Andrew Lansdown

This second “definition” is a haiku taken from Andrew’s poetry collection, Waking and Always, which was republished last year by Picaro Press.

Read more haiku definitions on the Australian Haiku Society’s website at: http://www.haikuoz.org/

The March 2009 issue of Quadrant magazine contains 4 of Andrew’s poems, including the following choka (a traditional Japanese poetic form):

Western Yellow Robin 

 

When the Almighty

spoke yellow-bellied robins

into bright being

and told them to multiply,

he already knew

I would observe this robin,

this gentle-grey bird

too shy to wear its colour

on its petite breast,

this yolk-yellow-under bird

drawn from the forest

by the feather-grey and -fine

smoke of my campfire—

and he also foreknew that

I would by virtue

of his implanted image

want to celebrate

and recreate this bird by

speaking it into a poem.

 

© Andrew Lansdown

The March 2009 issue of Quadrant magazine contains 4 of Andrew’s poems, including the following tanka (a traditional Japanese poetic form):

Sheep

 

Only three days since

they were shorn and already

their whiteness is gone.

Still, who of us has managed

even that long in this world?

 

© Andrew Lansdown

Amazon.com is now selling copies of Andrew’s short story collection, The Dispossessed. The book can be purchased for US$17.95. This is an economical price for readers in the United States. Go to: http://www.amazon.com/Dispossessed-Other-Stories-Andrew-Lansdown/dp/1876819308/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1235820886&sr=1-7 

The Dispossess can also be purchased from this website (which, given postage and dollar conversion rates, would be a cheaper option for readers in Australia). Click here to download an order form.

Omibus Books/Scholastic Australia has reprinted Andrew’s fantasy novel, The Red Dragon. This is the third print run of The Red Dragon, which was first published in 2006 and is the third novel in the Chronicles of Klarin trilogy.

Omibus Books/Scholastic Australia has reprinted Andrew’s fantasy novel, Dragonfox. This is the fourth print run of Dragonfox, which is the second novel in the Chronicles of Klarin trilogy.

Andrew’s essay, “Reading and Reflecting on Haiku”, which was recently published in Zest, the online magazine of the Australian Poetry Centre, is now available on this website. Click here to read the essay.

Australian poets Les Murray, Andrew Taylor, Andrew Burke and Andrew Lansdown enjoyed a chinwag over coffee at Andrew Taylor’s house in Mount Lawley (WA) in March 2008. Andrew L was surprised recently to find photographs of that gathering on Andrew B’s blogsite, Hi Spirits (http://hispirits.blogspot.com/search?q=Andrew+Lansdown). One of the photographs is reproduced below, having been brazenly lifted from Hi Spirits:

Poets Les Murray (left) and Andrew Lansdown (right)

Photographed by poet Andrew Burke at poet Andrew Taylor’s house in March 2008

In October (2008) Andrew Burke asked several fellow Western Australian poets, including Andrew Lansdown, to provide a poem-with-comments for his blogsite, Hi Spirits (http://hispirits.blogspot.com/). Andrew L sent Andrew B the poem “Finishing Up”, which Andrew B (confusing, isn’t it!) posted on 22 September 2008. The poem and brief explanatory comments are posted below:

Finishing Up 

 

Nightfall … and I am still here
in the school at the prison farm.

My children will be at the table, filling
their mouths with food and chatter.

And the littlest one will be asking
her mother, “Where is Daddy?”

I am where my resignation
has led me. My roguish students

are in the compound, locked up
for the night. Except for the sentries

the guards are gone. I am alone,
finishing up. Did I miss someone

when I said goodbye? Does it matter?
We have been good to one another,

these bad men and I. I try not
to think I will never see them again.

I am alone. I look out the window.
The forest is in silhouette.

On the lawn, almost dissolved
in the dusk, a young kangaroo

hunches on its haunches to graze.
It was not there a moment ago and

in a moment when I open the door
it will not be there again.

Although “Finishing Up” was published for the first time in Quadrant magazine in March this year [2008], it is a poem that I began writing in 1987. At the time, I didn’t feel the poem was good enough to publish and I couldn’t work out how to make it good enough. However, I did feel it had “something” and so I kept it in a file with other “almost” poems. I came back to it last year [2007] and substantially revised it into its present form. And I am pleased with it now.

     The gist of the poem is clear from the text of the poem. But a few specific details may be of interest. I was at the time the education officer-in-charge of the education centre at Barton’s Mill Prison Farm. The farm held minimum security male prisoners and was located near Pickering Brook in Western Australia. I had been granted leave without pay for a year in order to write a book on the Swan waterways with the painter Donald Green. The poem picks up on my mood as I stayed late to pack up my things on the last day at the prison.

© Andrew Lansdown

Over the years, various poets have paid tribute to Andrew and his work by dedicating poems to him. Among them are the eminent Australian poets Les Murray, Shane McCauley and Peter Kocan. Click here to view their poems.

Andrew’s fantasy novel, The Red Dragon, has won the Hoffman Award, which is part of the West Australian Young Readers Book Award (WAYRBA).

     WAYRBA is a readers’ choice award, organised on a statewide basis for young readers. The Award has two broad categories: Younger Readers and Older Readers. Children and youths are invited to nominate, through their libraries, recently published books of fiction that they have enjoyed. These nominations are then considered by the WAYRBA committee and the two lists are drawn up. Young people are then asked to read titles on the lists and evaluate them as ”terrific”, “good”, “okay” or “awful”. (Information taken from the WAYBRA website: http://www.wayrba.iinet.net.au.)

     The Hoffman Award is given to the highest ranked Australian/Western Australian book on the young readers’ list. This year, thanks to the “terrific” votes of West Australian young readers, the Hoffman Award has been given to The Red Dragon!

     Andrew accepted the award in person, and gave a reading from The Red Dragon, at the WAYRBA Awards Presentation Night at the Subiaco Theatre on Friday 24th October.

     The Red Dragon is published by Omnibus Books/Scholastic Australia and is the third novel in the Chronicles of Klarin trilogy. The other novels are With My Knife and Dragonfox. 

Quadrant magazine published one of Andrew’s tanka, “Becoming”, in its October 2008 edition:

Becoming

A girl from my girl

and her love … A new human

being has become …

So becoming—this person

who soon will call me “Grandpa!”

 

© Andrew Lansdown

Picaro Press has just released the new edition of Andrew’s 1987 poetry collection, Waking and Always.

The book is published as part of Picaro Press’s Art Box Series, which “aims to provide low-cost access to significant Australian poetry titles which, for whatever reason, are no longer generally available to the public.”

The new edition of Waking and Always can be ordered through this website (download an order form) or through the publisher’s website at: www.picaropress.com. RRP $15.00.

The Weekend Australian newspaper published Andrew’s haiku sequence, “Mosquito Haiku”, in its “Review” pages on 26-27 July 2008.

Mosquito Haiku

 

            i

Might as well tow

a bright sign as that high sound,

doomed mosquito!

 

            ii

A round of applause

for the mozzie skywriting with

sound instead of smoke!

 

            iii

Off and on all night,

a miniature winged syringe

disturbing my dreams.

 

            iv

Ha, that mosquito

just heard the mystical sound

of two hands clapping!

 

            v

I’m the only one

here—so it must be my blood

in the mosquito!

 

© Andrew Lansdown