Photo: Canada geese on the Mississippi © Andrew Lansdown

The Canberra Times newspaper, in its weekend Panorama magazine, 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 of Quadrant 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 Quadrant contains 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?'”

Last year Inkerman and Blunt published Australian Love Poems 2013, edited by Mark Tredinnick. The anthology proved to be very popular and the initial print run sold out within six months of its release.

Inkerman and Blunt has reprinted the collection with a few minor alterations, and with a “new” title, Australian Love Poems. (No, it’s not exactly the same title – the year, 2013, has been removed.)

Andrew’s poem, “Afterphase”, is in both editions, and is reproduced below:

 

Afterphase

for Susan

 

In the loll and lull

of love’s afterphase

 

her face is flushed,

her hair is mussed and

 

her mouth is curved

in shy contentment,

 

signalling her heart

shares her body’s

 

softness towards me.

 

          © Andrew Lansdown

Studio journal has published five of Andrew’s poems in its 2014 autumn issue (no. 131). The poems are “South”, “Us2”, “Jizo Stones by the Three-Storeyed Pagoda”, “The Unheard Stags” and “Reading at Lunchtime”.

The Canberra Times newspaper published Andrew’s poem “Parting Petals” on 22 March 2014. The poem, a gunsaku consisting of five haiku, is reproduced below:

 

Parting Petals

Kyoto Spring

 

          i

A light breeze is all

it takes to remind cherries

they’re ephemeral.

 

          ii

Almost as frail,

the cherry’s pinkish petals,

as they are pale.

 

          iii

More cherry petals

detaching from their sepals

beside the temples.

 

          iv

So the blossom goes

and for a time the cherries

sorrow without clothes.

 

          v

We saw you start—

now, cherries, like your blossom

we too must part.

 

          © Andrew Lansdown

The March 2014 issue of Quadrant magazine contains five poems from Andrew: “Frog Cacophonies”, “Kyoto Blossoms”, “The Unheard Stags”, “Faces”, “Jizo Stones by the Three-Storeyed Pagoda”.

With the exception of “Frog Cacophonies”, these poem were written about and after Andrew’s stay (with his wife, Susan) in Kyoto in March-April 2013.

“Jizo Stones by the Three-Storeyed Pagoda” touches on the sorrow experienced by many Japanese women after abortion, sorrow they express in devotion to Jizo, a Buddhist bodhisattva who they believe will help the souls of their lost children (mizuko) to escape from the purgatory of Sai-no-Kawara.

The poem, along with a photograph of the Jizo statuettes, is offered below:

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Jizo stones, Nara. Photo (c) Andrew Lansdown, 2014

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Jizo Stones by the Three Storied Pagoda

Kōfuku-ji, Nara

 

Treading softly the deer

graze among the Jizo stones

 

where mothers shed a tear

for their aborted children

 

and try to stem their fear

that the children suffer there

 

the hell they suffered here.

 

            © Andrew Lansdown, 2013