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Allsorts:
poetry tricks and treats
Andrew Lansdown
Illustrations: Susan Lansdown
Wombat Books
(Capalaba, Qld), 2010
278 pages
ISBN: 9781921633232
Back cover blurb
“Created with careful precision and an artist’s eye, Andrew Lansdown’s poems warmly invite us to celebrate animals and birds, insects and plants, people and planets. Through his poetry we explore the colours, smells, sounds, sights, shapes and textures of the world around us. You will enjoy their gentle humour and subtle insights, leaving you richer, wiser and deeply aware of the mysterious power of words.”
Paul Grover, editor of Studio Journal
In this new book by award-winning poet Andrew Lansdown, limericks and haiku jostle with rhymed verse and free verse to bring to life crazy critters, odd bods, fantasy worlds and the natural world. Allsorts is a collection of all sorts of poems that all sorts of people will find as colourful and sweet as a packet of liquorice allsorts.
The final 70 pages of Allsorts include personal observations from the poet about the poems in the collection, a comprehensive glossary of poetic forms and techniques, and a set of seven indexes identifying the poems that employ these different forms and techniques. These pages will prove an invaluable resource for anyone who wants to learn more about the poet’s craft, including students, teachers and aspiring poets.
Six Poems from Allsorts
Grandma and the Mouses
Our grandma grouses
about the mouses
in people’s houses.
She says, ‘It’s not nice
to let weeny mice
run about the hice!’
‘Yes,’ we says, ‘it’s news—
they gnaws and they chews
and they does doo-doos!’
‘Get us a cheese trap,’
says Gran with a clap.
‘Let’s give ’em a snap!’
She knuckles her hands
and we understands
the whacking she plans!
Oh, thinks us, what luck!
Our Gran’s got more pluck
than piglets in muck!
‘Yippee,’ says we, ‘yip!
You’ll get a neck-nip,
meece, unless you skip!’
© Andrew Lansdown
Illustration
© Susan Lansdown
Clever Blowfish
‘Look at me, Daddy,
I’m being a bubblegum!’
cried bubby blowie.
‘You’re such a clever fish, son,
but be careful you don’t … burst!’
© Andrew Lansdown
Illustration
© Susan Lansdown
The Elephant Who Lost His Tail
The elephant who lost his tail
requested one more in the mail,
for he’d seen an ad
in brochures he had
of a Pachyderm Spare Parts Sale.
The elephant who lost his tail
was riding the surf on a whale
when the postman came
and left to his name
a parcel as long as a rail.
The elephant who lost his tail
returned from the sea when a gale
infused its great force
into a white horse
and kicked him ashore like a pail.
The elephant who lost his tail
felt handsomely hearty and hale
as he ripped the pack
the shop had sent back
by return and registered mail.
The elephant who lost his tail
cried aloud with a woeful wail.
‘My hopes are all sunk!
They’ve sent me a trunk!
They ought to be bunked in a jail!’
The elephant who lost his tail
refused to give up or to fail.
He whittled the trunk
and wore it with spunk
fixed fast to his bot’ with a nail.
© Andrew Lansdown
Illustration
© Susan Lansdown
Leafivore
1
Stretched like a lion
in the sunlight on the lawn—
the children’s rabbit.
2
Yellow almond leaf,
get back to your twig before
the white rabbit comes!
3
Autumn smorgasbord—
the pet rabbit tries a plum
then an almond leaf.
Illustration
© Susan Lansdown
Limerick on a Long Nose
There was a short man whose nose
extended right down to his toes.
While walking a track
it caught in a crack
and stretched out as long as a hose!
© Andrew Lansdown
Allsorts
Skin divers and surfers no longer
look rubbery in their wet suits.
No more weak-walled tyre tubes
floating in the water. Instead
they sport iridescent panels
over chest and thigh. The black
serves now only to accentuate
the colours: red, yellow, peach.
Waiting for a wave, the surfers
drift in a jumbled group just off
the reef. They look like liquorice
allsorts, spilled from a packet.
© Andrew Lansdown
Illustration
© Susan Lansdown