A new collection of Andrew’s poems was released by Life Ministries in November. Of Petals and Immortals is a 28-page chapbook containing faith-focused poems, some of which are previously uncollected. The title for the collection is taken from the poem “Sakura Haiku” (“sakura” is Japanese for “cherry blossom”):

Sakura Haiku

with my wife in Kyoto in spring

 

The falling petals–

almost they make us forget

we are immortals.

 

          © Andrew Lansdown

See more details about this chapbook here.

Of Petals and Immortals can be purchased for $4.95 (post free) through this website.

The current issue of Australian Poetry Journal (Vol. 4, No. 2, 2014) contains one of Andrew’s poems, “Dove Tanka Triptych”.

“Founded in 2011 and edited by Dr Bronwyn Lea, the Australian Poetry Journal is the flagship publication of peak body Australian Poetry Ltd. It aims to bring contemporary poetry and poetics into the spotlight, publishing the best of Australian poetry across multiple genres and allowing for deep and engaged criticism.” (Quoted from AJP website.)

Andrew’s poem consists of three thematically linked tanka. The third tanka in the triptych is:

          3

 

Dove Drinking

 

A sudden flurry

and the dove on the birdbath

is gone, gone into

the paws and jaws of next-door’s

low-hiding high-leaping cat.

 

© Andrew Lansdown

One of Andrew’s poems is included in the latest issue of the literary magazine,Westerly (Vol. 59, No. 2, Summer 2014). Andrew wrote the poem, “Missing”, in memory of his brother, David. It is reproduced below:

Missing

i.m. David

 

The last time I wrote to my last brother

I lacked the words, so I wrote the words

of The Innocence Mission—wrote them as I recalled them,

enhanced by the singer’s melody and phrasing:

 

                    And I can only say

                    that I had hoped for you

                    safety from fears and darkness.

                    Are you feeling better than before?

 

I got up from the tossing bed

where the thoughts of him missing

and the feelings of missing him

would not let go my heart or leave my head

and I wrote, And I can only say …

and I sent these words into cyberspace

in the faint frail hope they might find him

and in finding impart a form of grace.

 

But I could not send them singing

and I could not send them straight—

and besides it was far, far too late.

In the innocence of despair he was on a mission

to decimate despair—and how was I to know

he had accomplished it already?

 

Oh, save for doubts, I am all unsteady—

yet truly, brother, beyond all saying

 

                    I can only say

                    that I had hoped for you

                    safety from fears and darkness! *

 

I am sorry, sorry I did not send these words to you before,

before you were feeling poorer than before.

 

And now I can only say: Since you have gone to stay

with the sweet Man of Sorrows who is acquainted

with all your grief, I’m glad you must be feeling better,

better, little brother, than even your best before.

But how can I find safety from the fears and darkness,

the tears and starkness, you abandoned at my door?

 

          © Andrew Lansdown

 

* From the song ‘You Are the Light’ by The Innocence Mission on the albumBirds of My Neighbourhood.

The literary journal, Meanjin, published Andrew’s poem “Departures” in its Summer 2014 (Vol. 73, No. 4) issue. “Departures” is a gunsaku consisting of 4 haiku set in Kyoto during the cherry blossom season.

The Canberra Times newspaper published Andrew’s poem “Prank Call” on 6 September 2014. The poem is reproduced below:

Prank Call

 

In my dream I breathed heavily

into the telephone mouthpiece.

 

I was wanting to make a sound,

send a sensation, of menace

 

down the pathways of wire and air

to set the caller’s heart quailing.

 

I breathed heavily in my dream,

lacing each lung-gust with a growl,

 

until I was stopped, mortified,

by a voice wheezy with asthma

 

and love, a voice saying my name.

And as I dreamed I woke I said,

 

‘Oh Mother, Mother, forgive me!’

But she never did, being dead.

                    © Andrew Lansdown

Andrew’s poem “Wren Haiku”, a gunsaku consisting of 4 haiku, has been published in English Workbook 1, written/edited by Anne Mitchell and published by MacMillan Education Australia in 2014.English Workbook 1 is an Australian Curriculum English textbook for Year 7 students.

Andrew ran poetry workshops for Years 7, 8 and 9 students at Swan Christian College on 19 September.

Andrew is available to run poetry and fiction workshops at primary and high schools and usually charges Australian Society of Authors’ rates.

Of the 95 Australian poets who published poetry collections in the past 12 months, 17 were chosen for the ABC Radio National’s “Around the Nation” edition of Poetica that was broadcast on Saturday 13th September at 3.00 pm (and again on Thursday 18th September at 9.00 pm). Andrew was one of those 17 poets, represented by his poem “Outhouse Haiku” from his book Inadvertent Things (Walleah Press).

Poetica’s website has the following introduction to “Around the Nation” program:

For this show, producer Mike Ladd read his way through 95 new Australian poetry books published in the last year or so. He says, “I favoured poems that looked out as well as in, captured a time and a place, embraced a wider politics, gave you something to feel beyond the default melancholy mode, but also something to think about; poems with wit and social comment. Also, some very polished, even beautiful writing, remains a page phenomenon, but radio is a sound medium; the poems have to communicate on being heard, not by being studied on the page. This selection was made with that in mind.”

The full “Around the Nation” program can be played or downloaded from the Poetica site, here:http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/poetica/around-the-nation/5497508

Andrew Lansdown reading at City Library, Perth  (Photo courtesy Elizabeth Lewis)

Perth City Library celebrated Poetry Week 2014 with a series of free events for poetry lovers in the first week of September. The final event was a poetry reading hosted by poet Kevin Gillam in the foyer of the City Library on Friday 5 September from 12.00 noon – 2.00 pm.

Andrew was one of three poets invited to read. The other two were Anna Dunnill and Connor Weightman. Other poets in the audience read during the open mic segments.

Andrew read several poems from each of his last three books, The Colour of Life (in Two Poets, Fremantle Press, 2011), Gestures of Love (Wombat Books, 2013) and Inadvertent Things (Walleah Press, 2013).

(Painting: Daniel Webster, Self Portrait 2014, digital print, acrylic, Japanese ink, triptych: each panel 80 x 57 cm, $5,000)

Ron Nyisztor, the curator of the 2014 Mine Own Executioner art exhibition, has usedAndrew’s poem, “I Do Not Forget”, as the introductory statement in the exhibition catalogue.

Mine Own Executionerhas established its reputation as WA’s pre-eminent exhibition of self-portraiture, fascinating audiences with diverse interpretations and representations of the self since the inaugural exhibition in 1995.

Presented by the Mundaring Arts Centre, this exhibition has challenged over 300 of Western Australia’s most significant artists to investigate the notion of self-portraiture.

Each year, the selected artists are invited by the curator to consider their approach to their visual interpretations in relation to the chosen curatorial theme.

Mine Own Executioner in 2014 presents an intriguing collection of new works by seminal Western Australian artists, with the aim of reflecting the depth and range of creative arts practice currently at work in our artistic community. Curated by Ron Nyisztor, these 18 West Australian artists have manifested an image of themselves free from the constraints of an overarching exhibition theme. (Information taken from the Mundaring Arts Centre website – http://www.mundaringartscentre.com.au/mine-own-executioner/)

The 2014 Mine Own Executioner portraits can be viewed on the Mundaring Arts Centre website, here – http://www.mundaringartscentre.com.au/online-gallery-mine-own-executioner-2014

Andrew’s poem can be read in the catalogue, which is available online as a pdf download, here –http://static.squarespace.com/static/52ca5eaae4b05c5f2d7b76de/t/538d3b3be4b08a8b36a01e47/1401764667282/MineOwnExecutioner_Catalogue_2014_spread.pdf

Photo: Canada geese on the Mississippi © Andrew Lansdown

The Canberra Times newspaper, in its weekend Panoramamagazine, published Andrew’s poem “Along the Way” on 28 June 2014. The poem is reproduced below:

Along the Way

 

This flock of Canada geese

floating on the Mississippi,

enjoying the sun’s crease

 

in the water’s bob before

continuing their migration

to some dim distant shore …

 

And may not I, too, take

such enjoyments, such respites

on the journey I must make?

 

            © Andrew Lansdown

Andrew’s poetry is represented in The turnrow Anthology of Contemporary Australian Poetry, published by the University of Louisiana at Monroe in the United States. Edited by John Kinsella, the 589 page anthology contains poems from over 120 poets ranging from Jordie Albiston to Les Murray to Fay Zwicky. The two poems by Andrew in the anthology are ”Being Bamboo” and “Waterlily Haiku”.

The July-August issue ofQuadrant magazine contains two poems by Andrew: “Red Dab” and “Temple Stone Basin”. The latter is a gunsaku comprised of five haiku. Here are the first and last haiku in “Temple Stone Basin“:

……..i

The water in it

or the stone basin itself–

which is uneven?

……..v

The cherry petal–

too heavy to be buoyed on

the light overspill.

        © Andrew Lansdown

The June 2014 issue of Quadrantcontains three of Andrew’s poems, each written in the traditional Japanese form known as the tanka: “Tribute to Three Masters”, “Consecration” and “Clash”. These tanka were written after Andrew and his wife, Susan, visited Japan in 2013.

“Consecration” (below) is a lament for the 52 Christians burnt at the stake at the Shogun’s command on the banks of Kamo River in Kyoto in 1619, near the beginning of the 250 year suppression of Christianity in Japan:

Consecration

i.m. the Kyoto martyrs, 1619

 

On the wind’s tongue

the spring cherry tree places

a host of Hosts

to consecrate the place where

Catholics were turned to ghosts.

            © Andrew Lansdown

Poetry Ireland Review, published in Dublin by Poetry Ireland Ltd/Éigse Éireann Teo, the national organisation for poetry in Ireland, has included four of Andrew’s poems in its 112th issue. The poems are “Sehnsucht”, “Measure”, “Path” and “Man of Sorrows”. The editor, John F Deane, requested the poems from Andrew for a special issue of Poetry Island Review on the theme, “Name and Nature: ‘Who do you say that I am?’”

Poem in new edition of Australian Love Poems

May 3rd, 2014

Tags: Poems

5 poems in Studio

May 3rd, 2014

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Poem in The Canberra Times

April 25th, 2014

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5 poems in Quadrant

April 14th, 2014

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8 poems in Chinese children’s anthology

April 13th, 2014

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Poem broadcast on Poetica

April 12th, 2014

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Judge’s Report: Karen W Treanor Poetry Awards

April 11th, 2014

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