Andrew’s poem “In from the Garden” has been published in Dear Dad: Poems by Australians about Fathers, an antholgy published jointly by the Australian Poetry Centre, Relationships Australia and designers/publishers Gracia and Louise.

 Celebrating dads, this attractive alternative to a Fathers’ Day card, includes the best poems about dads from poets across the country, as well as contributions from Premier of Victoria, John Brumby, esteemed poet, Chris Wallace-Crabbe, as well as TV and radio personalities Alan Brough and John Clarke.

Order a copy of Dear Dad for $15 (plus $3 postage) by emailing admin@australianpoetrycentre.org.au

Andrew has been invited to read his poetry at The Gods cafe at the Australian National University in Canberra on Tuesday, 10th August. The poetry reading will start at 8.00 pm.

Dinner: Light meals are available from 6pm.
Please book at The Gods on 6248 5538.
Patrons intending to eat are asked to arrive by 6.30 to ensure that the readings can begin at 8pm.

Seating is limited to 80 people.
To be sure of hearing a particular poet it is advisable to eat at the venue beforehand but ‘listening only’ ‘non-eating’ seats can also be booked.

Organiser Geoff Page
- book directly by phoning the Gods Café/Bar
Tel.6248 5538
— or email Geoff if you want to join one of his tables at gpage40@bigpond.net.au

Quadrant magazine published two of Andrew’s poems - “Every Cell” and “Timphony” - in its July-August issue. “Every Cell” is reproduced below:

Every Cell

 

While women try to leap it,

the gorge between the genders,

men mostly stand and gape.

O, that gorgeous otherness,

wider than ideology’s lies!

 

Breast, larynx and brain,

hip, heart and thigh—every cell

in every part of every woman

is female, feminine, familiar-foreign—

every cell is chromosomed double-X.

 

O! No wonder men stagger

with attraction and astonishment,

all their cells and senses

calling, yearning, crying,

The second X is the reason Y!

 

          © Andrew Lansdown

“Every Cell” can be viewed on the Quadrant website at http://www.quadrant.org.au/magazine/issue/2010/7-8/every-cell

Andrew’s poem “Timphony” is also posted on the Quadrant website at http://www.quadrant.org.au/magazine/issue/2010/7-8/timphony

The Weekend Australian has published Andrew’s poem, “Kimberley Cattle”. The haiku sequence appeared in the newspaper’s Review magazine on 26-27 June 2010:

Kimberley Cattle

 

          i

Low beam, high speed—

the cattle on the highway

too black, too close.

 

          ii

They keep on staring,

the cattle on the road, as

we keep on skidding.

 

          iii

Taking the smells

of burning rubber with us

thanks to the bulls.

 

          © Andrew Lansdown

The Canberra Times has published Andrew’s poem “Music Haiku”. The haiku sequence appeared in the newspaper on 22 May 2010:

Music Haiku

 

i

The jazz drummer—

one wire bent up on the brush

as he scuffs the beat.

 

ii

The jazz soloist—

scatting first with the guitar,

then the saxophone.

 

 

iii

Irish fiddler—

even seated he can’t help

jigging his jig!

 

iv

Celtic vocalist—

between the phrases, that rasp

of her indrawn breath.

 

 

v

Blues guitarist—

the capo slightly crooked

between the frets.

 

vi

The blues singer—

how did he know ‘right now is

the needed time’?

 

          © Andrew Lansdown

Andrew’s poem “Boat” is one of 22 poems recorded on a newly released CD titled “22″. ”Boat”, from Andrew’s book Fontanelle, is read by Andrew himself.

Produced by writingWA in collaboration with the Western Australian Department of Education and with investment from the Western Australian Department of Culture and the Arts, “22” is a poetry resource that has been developed for use in secondary schools in Western Australia.

The resource comprises an audio CD featuring 20 Western Australian poets reading selected works.

The CD is supported with an accompanying text publication, in addition to individual lesson plans relating to each of the 22 poems featured on the CD.  The lesson plans have been developed specifically to assist teachers to make maximum use of the resource in the classroom.

The Lesson Plans can be downloaded as a pdf from the writingWA website here.

The May 2010 issue of Quadrant magazine contains a review by Hal Colebatch of Andrew’s latest poetry collection, Birds in Mind: Australian Nature Poems. The review, titled “Resonance in the Natural World”, begins:

Andrew Lansdown is one of a very small handful of West Australians who, for more than 30 years, has committed himself steadfastly to writing, with poetry a major part of his output. His many books include the popular series of children’s adventures beginning with With My Knife, and collections of essays. He has recently launched a website and has an impressive collection of literary prizes. He has, from his first work, established a distinctive and individual voice.

Birds in Mind, a very substantial collection of 224 pages, consists mainly of “nature” poems, of birds, fish, flowers and animals, often with a Japanese cast to them. “Lansdown spices the world with pinches of finches,” according to Les Murray. However many of these have deeper resonances behind them, such as the grim “Poised on a Premonition” and the equally grim “Blowfish” …

The full review can be found on this website here. It can be read on the Quadrant website here.

The Australian Poetry Centre has invited Andrew to be a guest of the Salt on the Tongue Poetry Festival in Goolwa, South Australia. Andrew will give two readings at the Festival, which will run over the ANZAC weekend, from 23-26 April.

Festival details can be viewed on the APC website at http://www.australianpoetrycentre.org.au/?page_id=846 

The full program can be viewed/downloaded at http://www.australianpoetrycentre.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/full-goolwa-program.pdf

Quadrant magazine has published four of Andrew’s poems in its April 2010 issue. One of the four is a choka titled “Creators” and is reproduced here: 

Creators

 

Having created

the bamboo, God created

in His likeness

human beings, and seeing

bamboos growing

they straightaway imagined

xylophones, wind-chimes and flutes!

            © Andrew Lansdown

The other three poems an be viewed on Quadrant Online at: http://www.quadrant.org.au/magazine/issue/2010/4 

Studio magazine has published Andrew’s tanka, “Azure”, in its latest issue (No. 116, 2010):

Azure

 

Surely a piece is

missing from the azure robe

of the Madonna

in some ancient mosaic

because of that fairy wren!

 

            © Andrew Lansdown

Andrew has been invited to read poetry at Voicebox on Thursday, 4 February 2010.

Voicebox is a monthly poetry reading run by Josephine Clarke at the Tropicana Cafe in High Street (near the Victoria Hall), Fremantle. The readings start at 7.30 pm.

Andrew will read from his new collection of poetry, Birds in Mind. Come and hear him!

Recently noticed, this comment about (among others) Andrew published in The Australian newspaper earlier this year and written by the esteemed Austalian poet, Geoffrey Lehmann:

If I were to prepare an alphabetical list of Australian poets who are outstanding and whose first books have been published since 1980, my list would be ridiculously long. It would have to include Judith Beveridge, Kevin Brophy, Elizabeth Campbell, Caroline Caddy, Jennifer Compton, Tricia Dearborn, Stephen Edgar, Peter Goldsworthy, Philip Hodgins, Carol Jenkins, Andrew Lansdown, Anthony Lawrence, Bronwyn Lea, Emma Lew, Stephen McInerney, Homer Reith, Gig Ryan, Philip Salom, Andrew Sant, Shen, Craig Sherborne and Alex Skovron. Some of these poets are very different from each other and might look askance at their bedfellows. But all have written memorable and exciting poems. 

Quoted from “New poets mine rich seam of language”, Geoffrey Lehmann, The Australian, 21 February 2009 (emphasis added)

Andrew’s poem, “Sighting”, appears in the December issue of Quadrant magazine:

Sighting

On visiting the Bull Ranges with a traditional landowner

 

Pluck out the detecting eye,

break off the pointing finger,

shut up the exclaiming cry—

if only somehow I could!

 

But it’s too late to stifle

myself now or stop my friend,

who snatches up his rifle

and follows swiftly after

 

the wallabies I sighted,

the small wild rock wallabies

whose survival I blighted

simply because I saw them

 

and cried aloud, delighted.

            © Andrew Lansdown

The Katharine Susannah Prichard Foundation invited Andrew to judge the 2009 Karen W Treanor Poetry Awards. Andrew delivered his Judge’s Report at the Awards Ceremony on Sunday, 6 December. He said:

I was pleased to receive an invitation by the Katharine Susannah Prichard Foundation to judge the Karen W Treanor Poetry Awards. Given that this is the inauguration of the Awards, I felt doubly honoured to be entrusted with this responsibility. My thanks to Fay Dease, Glen Philips, Paula Jones, Katrin Kuenstler and others involved with by the Katharine Susannah Prichard Foundation.

      Sixty-nine poems were entered in the Karen W Treanor Poetry Awards, which is a good number for a new competition. As is to be expected, the poems varied greatly in subject, theme, style and tone. Although the quality of the poems was uneven, most were cogent and accessible. This is praiseworthy in an age when pretension and ambiguity are often passed off as profundity.

      Before commenting on the winning and commended poems, I would like to make a comment on the submissions generally. I noticed several faults reoccurring in the poems and it may be helpful to mention two of these faults.

      The first fault involves the use of clichés. … CLICK HERE TO READ ANDREW’S FULL REPORT 

Eminent Western Australian poet and critic, Shane McCauley, launched Andrew’s latest collection of poetry, Birds in Mind: Australian Nature Poems, on Saturday 24 October 2009. Speaking to a gathering of about seventy people, Shane McCauley said:

I was very touched, and of course honoured, when Andrew Lansdown asked me to launch his wonderful collection of poems, Birds in Mind: Australian Nature Poems. Ours has been a long acquaintance and friendship, going back to the mid-1970s or so. For a while, we were always the youngest WA poets to appear in anthologies such as Quarry, edited by Fay Zwicky in 1981. And I note that several of our near contemporaries in that anthology have gone on to either better or worse things, but Andrew and I have somehow managed to stay in the poetry-writing business.

Initially, there are several things to note about Birds in Mind. Firstly, the sheer size and scope of the subject matter. The joy in birds is apparent from the title, but they are only some of the creatures and plants the poet celebrates and sometimes mourns. You will also find superbly spare descriptions of, and reactions to, shells, frogs, lizards, kangaroos, crabs, fish, sunflowers, bamboo, orchids, trees in abundance—karri, jarrah, marri, redgum—and much, much more.

Another initial observation concerns the variety of places in which these poems have been published—they have obviously appealed to many different editors, and the Acknowledgements page is really mind-boggling. Apart from appearing in countless Australian journals and anthologies, many have been published overseas, in Japan, the USA, the UK.

A third observation is in regard to the quality of the book’s production itself and the generous 223 pages—no “slim” volume of verse this! … CLICK HERE TO READ FULL ADDRESS