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Wombat Books/Even Before Publishing has published a new collection of Andrew’s poems, Gestures of Love: The Fatherhood Poems.

As the subtitle indicates, the collection is a thematic one, with all the poems focused on family and fatherhood.

While some of the poems are new (uncollected), most have been taken been selected from Andrew’s other poetry collections.

As stated on the back cover blurb:

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Few poets have explored the weight and wonder of fatherhood like Andrew Lansdown.

Over the years he has established a high reputation for his subtle, insightful poems about his wife and children.

Acclaimed poet and critic Geoff Page has observed that “Lansdown has a very sincere and direct way of handling poems about his immediate family which subtly suggests great tenderness without becoming sentimental.” And world-renowned poet Les Murray has claimed that “no one writes of family love with more tenderness than he.”

Now, for the first time, Andrew’s widely-published, award-wining poems celebrating family life are gathered in one collection, Gestures of Love. These fatherhood poems are bound to delight and move all readers—not only parents, but also anyone interested in the joy, grief and quirkiness of the human condition.

Gestures of Love (pp. 136) is priced at $15.00 and can be bought through this website or from Wombat Books or ordered through you local bookshop.

The Canberra Times has published Andrew’s poem, “Music Tanka”. The poem, which appears in the 2 March 2013 edition of the newspaper’s Panorama magazine, consists of two tanka, as follows:

Music Tanka

 

 

1. Seeing the Sound

 

As to the eye

the springing of the mallets

so to the ear

the bounding of the poundings

from the taut timpani skins.

 

 

2. Purity

 

The notes are flat

and the timing is out, yet

what pure music

they make, the little sawn lengths

of bamboo bumped by breezes.

 

          © Andrew Lansdown

These two tanka are included in Andrew’s forthcoming book, Inadvertent Things: poems in traditional Japanese forms, scheduled for publication later this year by Walleah Press.

Andrew’s poetry is represented in a new anthology, None So Raw As This Our Land, published jointly by the Association of Stories in Macao (ASM), Cerberus Press and the Westerly Centre at the University of Western Australia. The anthology contains the original English texts of poems by 17 Western Australian poets along with translations of those texts into Chinese. The editor is Christopher (Kit) Kelen, while the translators are Iris Fan Xing, You Chengcheng and Song Zijiang.

Professor Delys Bird of the Westerly Centre, UWA, writes on the back cover blurb:

This unique anthology is the product of an equally unique project, involving Chinese translators from the University of Macau, and members of the project’s host, the Westerly Centre at The University of Western Australia. Intense discussion between poets and translators enriched the sometimes barren work of translation, resulting in a truly cooperative work, bringing together the poetry of seventeen West Australian writers. Their work demonstrates the strength and breadth of Western Australia’s writing culture as well as the impressive range of their voices. The anthology is significant as it makes that poetry available to a culture with the largest number of language speakers in the world. Yet this book delivers something even more important, creating connections between cultures through poetry and rendering effective and affective, those imaginative meetings.

Andrew’s poem in the anthology, ”Finishing Up”, is translated by You Chengcheng. Both the poem and the Chinese translation are included below.

Andrew’s poem “Finishing Up” has been published in an anthology edited by Christopher (Kit) Kelen for the Association of Stories in Macao (ASM) and Cerberus Press. Titled Notes for the Translators, the book contains poems from 142 Australian and New Zealand poets. Each poem is accompanied by a brief commentary by it author. The back cover blurb explains:

Notes for the Translators introduces the poet-translator to the work of 142 contemporary New Zealand and Australian poets. It is a pedagogic work, for use inside and outside of the classroom. Its aim is to help train poets as translators, and to train translators to be poets.

This is a practical book—a book with a simple facilitative aim. From the poems presented in these pages, and from the accompanying notes provided by their authors, translators will be able to offer a collection of contemporary Australian and New Zealand poetry to readers of languages other than English. With a few exceptions, each poem in the book is short (forty lines or less), the accompanying notes only a page or two of reading; therefore it should be possible to make a first draft translation for each poem in a single sitting. And so—from the materials offered here in this book-for-the-making-of-books—it should be convenient to commence the step-by-step building of a foreign language anthology.

This is a maker’s, not a critic’s, book. The notes are there to help the reader/translator understand a poet. The notes are from one poet to another; they are a helping hand across the cultural/linguistic gulf. If they are, needs be, written to some extent blindly (that is to say, without full knowledge of what lies across the gulf), then that will be a part of their beauty, of their poetic quality, and it will be a measure of the trust we place in strangers when we dedicate our hearts to the project of reaching a reader.

In the past week, two uses of this website bought eight of Andrew’s books. One purchased five books using PayPal, while the other purchased three books using a downloadable Order Form. Both methods of purchase will continue to be available for the foreseeable future.

To use PayPal to purchase books, go to the BUY BOOKS page by clicking HERE, then select the book/s you want and add them to your Cart.

If you prefer, you can download an ORDER FORM by clicking HERE, then print it out, fill it out and post it off with a cheque or money order.

The literary journal, famous reporter, has published one of Andrew’s poems, a 4-haiku sequence titled “Rain”. The poem appears in the current issue of famous reporter, number 44. Among the 226 pages of stories, poems, essays and reviews in this issue, there are fine poems by three other Western Australian poets: Shane McCauley, Kevin Gillam and Lucy Dugan.

FreeXpresSion magazine has published four of Andrew’s poems in its  February 2013 issue - ”Opulence”, “Homecoming”, “Departures”, “Windmill”.

The National Library of Australia has just released the latest book in its Little Book of … series – Little Book of Banksias. The editors have included one of Andrew’s poems, “Banksia”, from his first poetry collection, Homecoming.

The back cover blurb for Little Book of Banksias states:

The banksia is quintessentially Australian. Known and loved for its brush-like flowers and sweet honey nectar, the plant embodies both the beauty and harshness of the Australian landscape.

Little Books of Banksias features poems and extracts by some of Australia’s greatest poets and explorers, including Dorothy Hewett, Archie Weller, Douglas Stewart and Edward John Eyre.  These insights sit alongside works by renowned artists, such as Ellis Rowan, Adam Forster and Ebenezer Edward Gostelow.  Inspired by the collections of the National Library of Australia, Little Book of Banksias is a delightful showcase of some of our most beautiful Australian ‘bush candles’.

Andrew’s poems also appear in three other books in the NLA series – Little Book of Butterflies, Little Book of Trees, Little Book of Cats. Another of Andrew’s poems has been selected for Little Book of Orchids, scheduled for publication later this year.

Andrew’s books can now be purchased on this website with PayPal. Many buyers will find this more convenient than posting off an order form with a cheque or money order (although this method is still available). Click here to check out the BUY BOOKS page.

The January-February 2013 issue of Quadrant contains four of Andrew’s poems: ”Sand-Bathing”, “Perceptions” and ”Everlastings” and ”Blues”.

Andrew’s friend, Shane McCauley, has published a new collection of poetry, titled Ghost Catcher. The collection has been published by Studio magazine, which has given its entire 125th edition to showcase Shane’s poetry.

Here is one of Shane’s beautifully realised poems from Ghost Catcher:

Wind-Spooked

 

Startled mid-stride

by this icy gust

the returning cat

black-arrows through

tunnel of its sudden fear

is chased along

the leaf scattered path

of inelegant anxiety

scoots past reaching branches

and all the claws

hidden in the hunting cold

until escapes scurry

in the brain and it

unhurriedly sloughs off

the moment

and steps calmly

from the rain.

            © Shane McCauley

Shane McCauley’s work is featured in the FELLOW WRITERS pages of Andrew’s website. Read more of his work here: http://andrewlansdown.com/fellow-writers/shane-mccauley/

Andrew’s friend, Hal Colebatch, has published a new collection of poetry, The Age of Revolution. Consisting of 20 poems, the 16 page chapbook is part of Picaro Press’s Wagtail series.

The publisher claims that “a major objective of the [Wagtail] series is to keep enough good work in print for readers to form a considered opinion of each poet’s voice and style”. Certainly, The Age of Revolution offers a fine sampling of Colebatch’s poetic voice and style.

Copies of The Age of Revolution can be purchased for $4.00 from Picaro Press here: http://www.picaropress.com/

Read a poem (“Photograph of a Bristol University Ceremony, 1941″) from The Age of Revolution on this website here: http://andrewlansdown.com/fellow-writers/hal-colebatch/

Andrew has won the Caleb Prize for Poetry for the second year in a row.

He has been awarded the 2012 Prize for his book, Allsorts: Poetry Tricks and Treats.

Andrew was joint winner of the Caleb Prize for Poetry in 2011 for his book, Far from Home.

In her review of Allsorts on behalf of the Caleb Prize organisers, Omega Writers, Dale Harcombe states:

This book is aptly named as it contains all sorts of sweet delights. If you are a teacher feeling a bit lost about teaching poetry in class, or just someone who wants to learn more about the craft of poetry, you will find this book an invaluable tool.

Not only is Andrew Lansdown one of Australia’s best imagist poets, but included in the book are some personal observations about poetry, the best way to write a limerick, where ideas come from and ideas for writing poems as well as outlining different ways of writing e.g. quatrain, haiku, rhymed poem, sonnet or tanka.

Andrew explains techniques such as assonant rhyme, couplets, and alternating rhyme … [CLICK HERE TO READ ON]

The December 2012 issue of Quadrant magazine contains four of Andrew’s poems: “South”, “Away from Canada”, “Cynosure” and “Foul Play”. While all four poems can be read online only by Quadrant subscribers, the poem “South”, concerning the poet’s stay in the United States of America late last year, is reprinted below:

South

 

This is America and I don’t know

the birds or their migrations.

 

But I recognise this little gaggle,

this travelling trio, of Canada geese

 

grazing on the grass verge

of the hurtling eight-lane highway.

 

Such an unlikely place! Yet

they will not stay on the outskirts

 

of Chicago for long—they are

charting their way south for winter.

 

South—the same direction

as my home, the direction always

 

pulling at the loadstone of my heart.

                    © Andrew Lansdown

Andrew read at the Perth Poetry Club today (Saturday, 24th November). He was one of two invited readers and he read poems from his collections Far From Home and Two Poets.

Perth Poetry Club meets every Saturday afternoon at the Moon Café in Northbridge. More details here: http://perthpoetryclub.com/