2 poems in inScribe

Andrew has 2 poems in the August 2021 issue (Issue 02) of inScribe: Journal of Creative Writing — “Worship with Water”, a set of 4 tanka, and “Kilter”, a set of 3 haiku. The first 2 tanka in “Worship with Water”, which is set at Hozen Temple in Osaka, Japan, are:

            i
In the temple yard
an old man handpumps water
from a covered well
first for his own ablutions
then for the god’s libations.

…………ii
Ugly with fury,
the sculptured face of Fudo,
deity of fire …
With their water offerings, do
worshippers quench or fuel his ire?

            © Andrew Lansdown

Shortlisted but short of a win

Andrew’s shortlisted book, Abundance: New and Selected Poems, did not win the 2021 Australian Christian Book of the Year Award. What were the judges thinking!

But seriously, congratulations to Stephen McAlpine for winning the Award with his book, Being the Bad Guys.

Interestingly, of the ten books shortlisted for the Australian Christian Book of the Year Award, Andrew’s Abundance was the only poetry collection. The other nine books were all non-fiction works of a theological, apologetic, pastoral or biographical nature. With such a wide variety of genres in the one award, the judges’ task of selecting a winner must have been very difficult.

Concerning Abundance, the Award judges said:

“Andrew Lansdown has spent a lifetime observing, recording, honing and perfecting his art. This collection displays a masterful poet of form and image at home among his family, kingfishers, grasshoppers, puddles and his Lord and Saviour. Play and discipline. Joy and melancholy. Abundance is exquisite, delightful and always powerful.”

Read more about Abundance on this website here. Abundance can be purchased from Koorong Books or through this website, here.

Poem in Quadrant

Andrew’s tribute poem for the late Hal G.P. Colebatch, “Vikings”, was published in the September 2021 issue of Quadrant.

The poem is reproduced in full in an earlier post here, soon after it was first published in The Weekend Australian in March 2020.

It is fitting that this tribute should now appear in the pages of Quadrant, a magazine that regularly published Hal’s poems, stories and essays for over 40 years.

The poem reflects Hal’s passion for the sea and seafaring, his preoccupation with heroism and courage, and his commitment to the Christian faith. In keeping with the Viking analogies, the poem employs the old Anglo-Saxon and Norse poetic techniques of alliteration and kenning.