Birds in Mind:

Australian Nature Poems

 

Andrew Lansdown

 

Wombat Books

(Capalaba, Qld), 2009

224 pages

ISBN: 978-1-921633-041-1 

 

 

 

Back cover blurb

Kingfishers and zebra finches, triggerplants and tiger snakes, sandcrabs and cabbage moths, wattles pods and waterlilies—all find a place in this collection of poems celebrating Australia’s native and exotic flora and fauna. 

Birds in Mind brings together over 200 poems by one of Australia’s finest nature poets, poems as varied in style and tone as they are in subject and theme, poems that will turn readers into nature and poetry lovers if they aren’t already!

 

 

“Lansdown uses words with masterly precision to paint things as we have not previously seen them, but as we may be tempted to see them henceforth. His approach to his material is confident and systematic. And beguiling … 

“Sometimes the images are so acutely accurate they have us asking ‘Why didn’t we see that same similarity, that resonance?’”

            Shane McCauley, Fremantle Arts Review

 

 

“Lansdown spices the world with pinches of finches.”

            Les Murray

                                                                                     

 

 

Launch speech for Birds in Mind 

 

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! The beautiful cover painting is by Andrew’s late friend and mentor, Peter Good.

Andrew’s poetry is much influenced by Japanese short forms such as haiku and tanka that aim to capture the particularity, the is-ness, of (usually) a natural object, animal or scene. The goal is to achieve a rendering of this essence in just a few words. Andrew is adept at both forms (and many traditional Western forms, too) but it is more the spirit, the underlying intention, of them that gives grace and lucidity to all the poems gathered here.

Purely descriptive nature poetry can sometimes pall if it is not accompanied by insights, revelations, new slants. Andrew’s poems abound in these and irresistibly startle and delight, aesthetically appealing both to mind and emotion. Open the book anywhere and you will find descriptions of birds and animals we have all seen, but that are suddenly lifted here into another dimension via a combination of the poet’s imagination, diction and control of form. Here is one of my favourites, “Hawk” (p. 56):

Hunched in an overcoat of feathers

a hawk on the high wire,

like a snapshot of a shrug

 

As easily as he wields the wind in his wings

and clamps small creatures in his claws,

he sheds the world from his shoulders

We’ve all seen that hunched bird up on the wires on a cold day, but who has so perfectly fixed it in our memory as Andrew?

The poet’s capacity to be continually astonished by the natural world is both very moving and inviting, too. We, the readers, are also encouraged to look with new eyes on things we might have taken for granted. These poems are full of those “Ah!” moments beloved of the haiku poets. Humble slaters, wood lice, “forage about in their armoured coats/ like miniature armadillos”; a jewel beetle basks “in rainbows, like a drop of oil”; the bobtail has “unexpectedly, a yellow flower/blooming in the back of the throat”; straw necked ibises are “like elderly Oriental/ gathered for a festival”. This is poetry forged from a brilliant combination of observation and compassion, what [the Chinese philosopher] Mencius referred to as the “thinking heart” (or maybe camera with heart!).

Although great beauty and a sense of joy infuse these poems, it should not be thought that they are in any way merely “pretty” or dainty. Nothing could be further from the truth, for thought Andrew delights in the natural world, he does not shy away from its less attractive manifestations (though the negative is frequently related to some human intervention, as in “Snake in a Box” or the mindlessly cruelty “Blowfish”). There is grit and blood and pain in this poetry, too: I won’t read “Four Men” to you, a graphically precise account of mulesing, lest anyone here, including myself, passes out. Nature here is multifarious and complex, powerful and sometimes violent, as well as exquisite in its forms, colours and profound variety.

There are some poems, such as “Trap” and “Good Catcher”, wherein Andrew contemplates the innocence of children coming into contact with some of the problems related to human responsibility in the face of nature—that we are here, as I think Rilke puts it, as guardians, protectors not owners of what surrounds us. The poet muses on his child in “Good Catcher”: “He is too young to know/ how some things are crippled by love/ if they’re not let go.”

I could single out countless other poems for their wisdom and whimsy and elegance, but I am aware just how eager you are to buy and read the book yourselves! I would just like to conclude with one small poem, a tanka, that for me best encapsulates the driving force of Andrew’s poetry. It is very appropriately called “Importance” (p. 216):

Given that God

did not consider robins

too small to make,

I regard them big enough

for my poems to celebrate.

Enjoy this major contribution to Australian poetry. I have the greatest pleasure in announcing that Birds in Mind is launched! Thank you.

 

Shane McCauley

24 October 2009

 

Photographs (above) by Dwight A. Randall:

1st photograph - Shane McCauley launching Birds in Mind

2nd photograph - Andrew Lansdown reading from Birds in Mind at the launching

                                                                                     

 

 

 Seven poems from Birds in Mind 

 

 

Birds in Mind

 

        i

Sacred kingfisher—

into the world onto the branch

courtesy the King.

 

        ii

Wren and the art

of bird-making—dear Lord, such

blue in the bush!

 

        iii

Statuesque heron—

unmoved as humans debate

the Sculptor question.

 

        iv

Goodness, that ibis

signals the presence of birds

in the mind of God!

            © Andrew Lansdown

 

 

 

Desertion

 

Where the track curves out of sight

between the fire-scarred jarrahs,

 

shadowy among the shadows but noisy

for the forest litter, kangaroos

 

are rising and retreating. An awe,

an ache, this glimpse. Proceeding,

 

I discover where they dozed beneath

the grasstrees. I feel their desertion.

 

I wonder if I should go on or go back.

Either way, who will give me welcome?

            © Andrew Lansdown

 

 

 

Poem about Freedom

 

I am sitting in the shade

of the lemon tree, trying to write

a poem about freedom. But

 

my son is swinging in the almond,

calling, ‘Dad, look at this! Dad!’

The day conspires to distract me

 

from things I have designated

important. On a branch

arching over me, a lemon’s

 

green rind is yielding to yellow.

Near my feet, a hornet

is hurtling sand from a hole

 

set in a clear space

between the rootbound and budless

chrysanthemums. In the apple tree

 

the fruits’ round cheeks

are powdered with rouge

and a parrot is summoning its mate

 

to a feast. Now my daughter

crams her rag doll

in the cane chair beside me and

 

places in its lap a sprig of mint.

Bruised by her clumsy hands

it smells so clean and sweet.

            © Andrew Lansdown

 

 

 

Desperation

 

It senses its death,

the small thin caterpillar

fastened to the sill

by a thread to its tail tip.

And yet with the last

of its strength, it lifts its head,

rears up like a snake

at the small spider circling

just out of striking distance.

            © Andrew Lansdown

 

 

 

Bull and Bird

 

The water dripping

from the muzzle of the bull

spoils the reflection

of the masked plover wading

between its great muddy hooves.

            © Andrew Lansdown

 

 

 

Pink Fan Triggerplants

 

Who sets the heart for wonder?

What triggers the spring of praise?

 

Look! In a tumble of pink on the scree,

triggerplants—primed with pollen,

 

hammers cocked. Like the children,

I kneel to touch the heart of a flower.

            © Andrew Lansdown

 

 

 

Pine and Poem

 

Unlike other trees, the Norfolk Island pine

neither gives up and droops over nor disperses

into branches. No weeping, no compromise.

 

It surges straight up. Even its laterals

support the single perpendicular.

Each ring of branches is a set of guys

 

anchored to the sky to keep the centre post

poised. Diminishing in diameter,

the spoked strata shape a tent

 

as a farthingale shapes a dress.

The green frame, tall, conical, waiting

to be covered. Trim the sky for a canvas.

 

Peg it down. Don’t let it flap loose

from your imagination. Gales are gathering.

Strong winds are coming. Stake out

 

your tent. Enter in. Enter in to the calm.

            © Andrew Lansdown

 

 

 

 

Reviews of Birds in Mind

 

 

 

Just released: ‘Birds in Mind’ by Andrew Lansdown

 

Author Andrew Lansdown is renowned for his award winning poetry. In this brand new collection of over 200 pages there are poems told through various forms, but all with a focus on nature.

 

On the back, Les Murray says: “Lansdown spices the world with pinches of finches.”

 

There are many haiku and tanka within these pages, and the same accurate eye and ear is brought to bear in other forms on much minutiae of the natural world.

 

Here’s a little poem, as many of them are, as a taster:

 

Street Artist

 

Using pompom brushes

and a pointillist technique,

 

a wattle tree has dabbed

a park bench with yellow.

            © Andrew Lansdown