5 poems in Quadrant

 

 

 

The latest issue (July-August 2021) of Quadrant magazine includes 5 of Andrew’s poems—”So Far South”, “Gleam”, “The Bodhisattva’s Bib”, “A Game of Anything”, and “Bamboo Triptych”.

“The Bodhisattva’s Bib” is a set of 4 haiku, while “Bamboo Triptych” is a suit for 3 tanka. “So Far South”, “Gleam”, and “A Game of Anything” are free form poems. “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

Three poems in Quadrant

 

 

 

 

Quadrant magazine has published three of Andrew’s poem in its November 2020 issue:

“Windbell”, 3-haiku gunsaku (or, series);

“The Homecoming”, a 2-tanka gunsaku;

and “Canada Geese Near Canada”, a 4-tanka gunsaku.

The first two tanka of “Canada Geese Near Canada” are:

 

.      .1
A spearhead of geese,
fixed on the shaft of instinct,
and hurled by autumn—
how swiftly and straight it flies
south in the threatening skies!

.      .2
Again, skeins of geese
cross the Wisconsin border,
wearing the sky’s fleece.
And whose heart doesn’t shiver
for want of a warmer winter?

        © Andrew Lansdown

“Canada Geese Near Canada” is included in Andrew’s latest collection, Abundance: New and Selected Poems, published in December 2020 in the USA by Wipf and Stock Publishers.

Three poems in Studio

Studio magazine published three of Andrew’s poems in issue Number 148, 2020: “Little Endings” (a suite of 6 haiku), “Autumn Maples” (a suite of 2 tanka), and “Separation” (a suite of 2 tanka).

“Little Endings”, a set of 6 light-hearted haiku, will be included in a forthcoming collection of Andrew’s poems. It reads:

Little Endings

.      .i
The spider’s mistake—
as it approached it set me
doing the quick-step!

.      .ii
Worse for the snail—
hearing while night-walking that
unexpected crunch!

.      .iii
My condolences,
grasshopper, for hopping into
my son’s affections.

.      .iv
Howzat! The blowfly
scored a triple twenty on
the spider’s dartboard!

.      .v
A grim irony—
aiming at a spider with
a can of fly-spray.

.      .vi
Feeling a bit flat—
mosquito meditating
on a clapping sound.

        © Andrew Lansdown

Haiku in The Mainichi newspaper, Japan

Andrew and his wife, Susan, were in Japan for five weeks earlier this year (2020). As if in celebration of their arrival, The Mainichi newspaper published one of Andrew’s haiku.

It was a complete surprise, as Andrew has never submitted work to this paper.

Apparently, the haiku editor, Dhugal J. Lindsay, recalled a haiku from Andrew’s 2005 Picaro Press chapbook, Warrior Monk, and felt it had something to say about the bushfires that had been raging for weeks in the eastern states.

Andrew’s haiku and the editor’s comments are included below:

than the twilight, kangaroos

crossing the firebreak

—

Andrew Lansdown (1954- ). From “Warrior Monk,” Picaro Press (Warners Bay), 2005.

The Australian sun is harsh and strong during the day, colors are vivid and edges and shadows stand out. This makes one notice even more the softer edges and muted colors that appear as dusk approaches and the light fades. There is only enough light left reflecting off the landscape to make out the shadows of the kangaroos bounding across the open space between the grass and scrub on either side — they are recognized as kangaroos perhaps more by their movement than by their shape. Although this haiku was made over 15 years ago, with the current bushfires in Australia, the image brought to my mind by “the firebreak” is a swathe of land recently burned to clear off all the flammable grass and scrub while bushfires inexorably make their way towards the poet’s property. The blackened land causes the kangaroos to fade even further into the twilight.

Selected and commented on by Dhugal J. Lindsay

https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20200124/p2g/00m/0et/074000c

Read more about Warrior Monk here.