Opulence: poems on parenting
Andrew Lansdown
Life Ministries (Nollamara), 2002

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Back cover blurb

opulence – 1. wealth; riches 2. abundance; plenty

“Lansdown has a very sincere and direct way of handling poems about his immediate family which subtly suggests great tenderness without becoming sentimental.” - Geoff Page, A Reader’s Guide to Contemporary Australian Poetry

Andrew and his wife Susan have five children. The poems in this short collection celebrate parenthood, concentrating on the early life of one of their sons.

Andrew’s poetry has been published in over sixty magazines/newspapers and forty anthologies. His third collection of poetry, Windfalls (published by Fremantle Arts Centre Press in 1984), won the Western Australian Week Literary Award (now the WA Premier’s Award). His sixth collection, Between Glances (published by William Heinemann Australia in 1993), won the Adelaide Festival’s John Bray National Poetry Award.

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Two poems from Opulence

Gravid

Gravid. It sounds heavy,
like gravity—and hence
round, like the earth.

Gravid. It suggests too
something grave, something
as weighty as wonder.

Gravid. Without doubt
it is a description of you,
dearest, these few weeks

before your delivery.

© Andrew Lansdown

Opulence

Her milk has come in
but our son still sleeps.

I cup my palm. Oh,
such a hard opulence!

She lies awake, willing
his hot mouth to squall.

My heart aches with love
as a breast with milk.

© Andrew Lansdown