WA Poets Publishing released a new collection of Andrew’s poetry in February 2025. Titled Filling the Emptiness, the book contains 90 poems on varying subject and in varying forms. The book also contains a six-page Introduction written by Andrew.
You can read more details about Filling the Emptiness, and four sample poems, on this website here.
Copies of Filling the Emptiness can be purchase through the BUY BOOKS page on this website for $25.oo, postage included.
Issue 160 (2024) of Studio magazine contains four of Andrew’s poems—”Last Laughs: two lyrics for my father”, “About Emptiness” (a set of three haiku) and “Among Autumn Maples” (reproduced below).
One of Andrew’s photographs—of Osaki Hachimangu Shrine in Sendai, Japan—was used for the cover of this issue of Studio.
Among Autumn Maples
I see four men walking in the midst of the fire …
and the appearance of the fourth is like … Daniel 3:25
An affinity
with those men in Babylon
unfazed by fire—
that’s what I feel as I walk
through this maple inferno.‘A son of the gods’
is how the 4th man appeared
as he braved the fire.
How I’m pining to see him
walking among the maples!© Andrew Lansdown
Andrew has had ten poems published in six issues of The Mozzie from June 2023 to February 2024:
Volume 31, Issue 5, February 2024 – one poem: “Increments of Beauty”
Volume 31, Issue 4, December 2023 – two poems: “A Not-So-Nonsense Poem” and “Preventive Measures”
Volume 31, Issue 3, October 2023 – two poems: “Concerning Austerity and Creativity” (consisting of two tanka, “1. Inspirations for Ikebana” and “2. Ikebana Dreaming”) and “Violets” (consisting of three haiku)
Volume 31, Issue 2, August 2023 – three poems: “Locations of Red”, “Aboriginal Rock Art” and “Sculptors”
Volume 31, Issue 1, July 2023 – one poem: “Starlight” (four haiku)
Volume 30, Issue 9, October 2023 – one poem: “Zuiho-in Zen Temple, Kyoto”
March 2023 issue of Quadrant contains five poems by Andrew. They are: “Getting Light”, “Hole”, “Pictures of Plants”, “The Calming Clams”, and “Locations of Red”. “Pictures of Plants” is a gunsaku, a set of six haiku on (as the set title indicates) the subject of plants.
“Holes” was written after a visit to a small graveyard in Kyoto, Japan, where women had left offerings before an idol of Jizo, a Buddhist Bodhisattva to whom women appeal to save their deceased children from a hell-like place called Sai no Kawar. The poem is reproduced below.
Holes
Japan: Jizō Bosatsu, guardian of the souls
of miscarried, aborted and stillborn children (mizuko)A persimmon
left as an offering to
Jizo Bosatsu
has been holed by birds, just like
a mother’s heart, holed by grief.Also without
a centre, a five-yen coin
offered to Jizo
by a mother aching to save
her mizuko from limbo.© Andrew Lansdown
Inscribe: Journal of Creative Writing has published two of Andrew’s poems in its “Birds” issue (No. 5, 2023). Andrew’s poems are “Blessed”, about sparrows sandbathing on the banks of the Kamogawa in Kyoto, and “Zebra Finches, Wangkatjungka”. The latter poem is a set of eight haiku celebrating, as the title indicates, zebra finches in and around an aboriginal community in the north or Western Australia. The first and last haiku are:
Butterfly sprinkler—
beckoning by fluttering
a flock of finches.
The close of day—
only a peg and a finch
left on the line.
© Andrew Lansdown
Windfall: Australian Haiku, Issue 10, 2022 contains one of Andrew’s haiku. Windfall is a chapbook anthology representing the work of 63 poets chosen by Beverley George and published by Blue Giraffe Press.
Andrew’s haiku is:
in the buckle
of the waterlily’s rim—
a buoyant frog
© Andrew Lansdown
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.
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
The American literary journal, Antipodes, has published one of Andrew’s poems. “Light Observations”, a set of eight light-hearted haiku, appears in Vol. 34, No. 2, December 2020 issue of Antipodes. The middle two haiku are:
……….iv
The ram paddock—
a gathering of Scotsmen,
sporrans swinging.
……….v
Glorious racket—
one million frogs hollering
or one megafrog?
© Andrew Lansdown
The last two issues of The Mozzie each contain one of Andrew’s poems.
His poem “The Biblical Maples”, a set of four tanka, is in the June 2021 issue (Vol. 29, Issue 1) of The Mozzie.
His poem “Ascendant Maple”, a set of three light-hearted haiku, is in the July 2021 issue (Vol. 29, Issue 2) of The Mozzie.