Two poems in Seagift

The inaugural issue of Seagift 2022 contains two poems by Andrew—”The Homecoming” and “A Game of Anything”.

To quote the magazine Introduction, “Seagift is … a beginning. It is an inaugural collection of poems, non-fiction, and fiction curated by members of the Creative Writing team at Sheridan Institute of Higher Education.” The members of the curating/editorial team are: Melinda Tognini, T. C. Shelley and Miriam Wei Wei Lo.

Although Andrew was/is not part of the editorial team, he is an adjunct lecturer in Creative Writing at Sheridan Institute.

The text of Andrew’s poem, “A Game of Anything”, is reproduced below:

 

 

A Game of Anything

I am watching two little girls
like ducklings tottering

in line behind their mother—
only, they are making a game

of the going, taking care
with wing-flappings for balance

to keep in the lanky shadow
she is casting on the asphalt

as she trundles her trolly
in the late afternoon sunlight

through the shopping-centre carpark.

© Andrew Lansdown

two poems in inScribe

 

 

Two of Andrew’s Poems—”Kimberly Hand” and “Meditations On Impermanence”—have been published in inScribe: Journal of Creative Writing, No. 4, August 2022.

“Meditations On Impermanence” is a set of four tanka. “Kimberly Hand”, reproduced below, consists of two stanzas, each with a syllabic structure like a tanka.

 

 

Kimberley Hand

Stencilled on stone
in spattered orange ochre—
a hand that once held
a flint knife and a fire stick,
a war club and a child’s hand.

It was, I suppose,
a hunter’s hand, this outline
in ochre spatter:
I suppose, too, none can tell
if he meant to wave farewell.

© Andrew Lansdown

Poem in The Mozzie

Volume 30, Issue 6 (January 2023) of The Mozzie contains a poem by Andrew. The poem, “After the Fishermen”, consists two tanka. The second, subtitled “Spillage” is reproduced below.

 

2. Spillage

Pluck a red petal
from a gerbera, string it
with other petals …
Now look at the gills spilling
from the severed salmon head …

© Andrew Lansdown

Three Poems in Studio

Three of Andrew’s poems have been published in Studio, Number 153, 2021. The poems are “A Game of Anything”, “Restraint” and “Bamboo Triptych”. The same issue of Studio contained a review by Ian Keast of Andrew’s latest poetry collection, Abundance: New & Selected Poems. (Read the review here.)

Nine poems in Seven issues of The Mozzie

Andrew had nine poems in seven issues of The Mozzie in 2022:

Volume 29, Issue 7, January 2022 — “Breakdown”
Volume 29, Issue 10, May 2022 — “Ukrainian Villanelle” (text of poem posted on August 12, 2022)
Volume 30, Issue 1, July 2022 — “She”
Volume 30, Issue 2, August 2022 — “Little Things” and “The Dunking Birds”
Volume 30, Issue 3, August 2022 — “Times of Fox-Dread”
Volume 30, Issue 4, October 2022 — “Petal Poems, Kyoto”
Volume 30, Issue 5, December 2022 — “Ninth Month”

“Ninth Month”, a light-hearted, imagist tanka, is reproduced below:

Ninth Month

A cement mixer—
the shape, of course, but even
the way while sleeping
she would toss about and turn
to keep our child on the churn.

© Andrew Lansdown

Poem in StylusLit

The online journal StylusLit has published Andrew’s poem, “About Emptiness”. Appearing in Issue 12 (September 2022), the poem is a set of three haiku on a common theme.

As stated on the journal’s website, “StylusLit is an Australian, bi-annual online literary journal, which publishes poetry, short stories, creative non-fiction, novel excerpts, interviews and reviews.”

“About Emptiness” is reproduced below. You can also read it on the StylusLit website here.

 

Andrew to read at Perth Poetry Club on 1st September

Perth Poetry Club has invited Andrew to read on Saturday, 1st of September.

Andrew will give two readings: One will feature poetry from his latest book, Abundance: New and Selected Poems; the other will feature the poems of William Hart-Smith.

Perth Poetry Club meets every Saturday at 2.00-4.00 pm at the Moon Café, 325 Williams Street, Northbridge.

If unable to attend Andrew’s reading in person at the Moon Café, you can watch via Zoom. Learn how to connect to the Zoom meeting from the club’s website here.

 

 

 

Poem in The Mozzie

The Mozzie has published a poem by Andrew in its May 2022 issue (Volume 29, Issue 10). A bitter lament at the plight of the Ukrainians at the hands of the Russians, it is reproduced below:

Ukrainian Villanelle

How we admire them as we watch them die,
the brave beaten unbowed people of Kyiv,
how they lift our spirits and make us sigh.

We applaud as they refuse to comply
with the demand that they lie down to live
and we admire them as we watch them die.

A kid lifts a Kalashnikov to his eye,
a pensioner arms himself with a shiv—
how they lift our spirits and make us sigh!

A husband lingers on a last goodbye
a mother howls a hurt she cannot forgive—
how we admire them as we watch them die.

Who’ll answer tyranny, and how and why?
Let them—they’ve valour enough to give.
How they lift our spirits and make us sigh.

Cowering behind Covid masks, we cry
with all the pretentiousness of a spiv
how we admire them as we watch them die,
how they lift our spirits and make us sigh!

          © Andrew Lansdown

 

Feature image: Homoatrox, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Poem & Photograph in Ekstasis

Ekstasis magazine has published Andrew’s poem, “Touching the Sacred”, in its Spring 2022 issue. This poem is a set of five haiku located in Kyoto, Japan. (A grouping of haiku on a common subject, theme, mood and/or setting is known as a gunsaku.)

Ekstasis also published a photograph Andrew took in Kyoto of susuki plumes, which corresponds to one of the haiku in the gunsaku.

The fifth and final haiku in “Touching the Sacred” is:

At the fox shrine—
a skulk of yipping windbells
wagging their tails.

          © Andrew Lansdown

You can read the all five haiku comprising “Touching the Sacred” on the Ekstasis website here: https://www.ekstasismagazine.com/poetry/2022/touching-the-sacred?rq=Andrew%20Lansdown

Last year, Ekstasis published another of Andrew’s poems, “The Biblical Maples”, a set of four tanka, which can be read here: https://www.ekstasismagazine.com/poetry/2021/7/25/the-biblical-maples?rq=Andrew%20Lansdown

Featured image: Susuki plumes, copyright Andrew Lansdown