Vale Andrew Burke

Left: Andrew Lansdown and Andrew Burke, 2022

Right: Susan & Andrew Lansdown and
Jeanette & Andrew Burke

Photographs: Susan Lansdown, 21 February 2022

 

Andrew Burke passed away on Tuesday, 23rd May, 2023. He was a widely published Australian poet and was widely respected in Australian literary circles. More importantly, he was a loving husband to Jeanette and father to Miles, Charles and Alice. He was a good natured man who was a good friend to many.

Andrew Burke was also a good friend to Andrew Lansdown, who will be conducting his funeral service at Karrakatta Cemetery on Friday, 9th June, at 10.15 am. Friends and admirers of Andrew B. are invited to come and pay their respects.

Some of Andrew Burke’s poems can be read on the Other Poets & Poems page on this website here.

A poem by Andrew L. for and about Andrew B. can be read on this 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.

 

 

 

Abundance shortlisted for Australian Christian Book of the Year

Andrew’s latest poetry collection, Abundance: New and Selected Poems, published in the USA by Cascade Books, an imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers, has been shortlisted for the 2021 Australian Christian Book of the Year Award. The Award is organised by The Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge Australia Incorporated (SparkLit), and further details can be learned from the official website, SparkLit – Igniting Christian Writing.

The winner will be announced on 2 September 2021.

You can read several sample poems from Abundance here. Go here to purchase a copy.

New Book with US Publisher

 

 

A new collection of Andrew’s poems has just been published in the United States by Cascade Books, an imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers.

Titled Abundance: New and Selected Poems, the book contains poems from eleven of Andrew’s other books as well as some previously uncollected poems.

Read the back cover blurb and some sample poems from Abundance here.

Purchase copies of Abundance (paperback – $29.95; hardback – $49.95; post free in Australia) here.

 

Andrew’s poem on Kingdom Poets website

Canadian poet and editor, D.S. Martin, posted one of Andrew’s poems, “The Martyred Mother”, on his Kingdom Poets website on 11 January 2021. The post also includes biographical information about Andrew, and alerts readers to the publication of his new book, Abundance: New and Selected Poems, a book that D.S. Martin helped to edit for US publishers, Wipf and Stock. View the post at Kingdom Poets (a blog by D.S. Martin): Andrew Lansdown*.

Kingdom poets featured another post about Andrew, including 3 of his poems, on 2 May 2011 – here, Kingdom Poets (a blog by D.S. Martin): Andrew Lansdown.

D.S. Martin posts a poem every Monday: “Since February of 2010, Kingdom Poets has grown to become an extensive archive — from across the centuries, around the world, and varying church backgrounds.” It is well worth a visit.

Chapbook of Children’s Poetry

Life Ministries has published a chapbook of Andrew’s children’s poetry—The Maiden and the Unicorn and other poems for children. It contains 16 poems (haiku, limericks, ballads, tanka and rhyming couplets and tercets) from Andrew’s larger collection, Allsorts: Poetry Tricks and Treats. The title poem, “The Maiden and the Unicorn”, is from Andrew’s novel, The Red Dragon.

The back page blurb states:

“When [my teacher] read the two outstanding books it made me gleam up with glee,” Lacie, a Year 6/7 student, wrote to Andrew Lansdown about his novels With My Knife and Dragonfox.

Hopefully, readers will be similarly delighted with Andrew’s poems for children in this short collection, The Maiden and the Unicorn.

The charming illustrations by Susan Lansdown should clinch the readers’ joy.

At $5.95 (post free), this 24 page chapbook offers readers an appealing introduction to Andrew’s poetry for children. Copies can be purchased here.

Poem in Eucalypt: A Tanka Journal

 

Eucalypt: A Tanka Journal (Issue 29, 2020) has published one of Andrew’s tanka. Andrew has titled it “Evocations”, although it was published without a title in Eucalypt, and without an opening capital or closing full-stop. It is reproduced below in the house style of the magazine:

 

unlikeliest things
can ignite or inflame grief …
today the bamboo’s
swollen knuckles remind me
of my dead mother’s dear hands

        © Andrew Lansdown

 

Poem in Westerly

 

 

 

Westerly magazine published one of Andrew’s poems, “Dip”, in issue 65.1, 2020.

Although “Dip” is written in free form, it nonetheless employs (as is the case with many of Andrew’s poems) a one-off, self-imposed syllabic metre.

It consists of a single descriptive statement that unfolds in four-syllable lines arranged in six couplets, each couplet loosely embodying a conceptual unit.

Each line is enjambed, four of them in such a way as to break a word mid-syllable or mid-compound.

The poem employs alliteration, moving from “d” to “p” and “g” sounds.

It attempts to capture in a single, succinct sweep an image, a scene, Andrew saw in Kyoto, Japan.

Dip

A little dip
in the broad rim

directs the brim-
ming rainwater

where to over-
flow, gliding slow

or quick in drib-
ble, drip or drop,

from the wide cup
of the level-

standing garden
granite basin.

        © Andrew Lansdown

“Dip” 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 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.

Four poems in Quadrant

The April 2020 issue of Quadrant contains 4 of Andrew’s poems: “Loss”, “Apprehension”, “The Lotus Pod Innovations”, and “Unleafed Weeping Cherry”.

“Loss” is a villanelle; “The Lotus Pod Innovations” is a 3-tanka gunsaku; “Unleafed Weeping Cherry” is a 2-tanka gunsaku; and “Apprehension” is written in rhyming couplets.

Apprehension

As we amble in autumn in Nara Park,
where cherries and gingkoes are turning stark

and stags scent the heat of hinds on the breeze,
my soul apprehends as my sight perceives

the heart-shaped leaves of the Chinese tallows,
crimson as blood from the Man of Sorrows.

        © Andrew Lansdown

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