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:

.

.

.

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

 .

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

Eight of Andrew’s poems have been included in a new bilingual anthology for children, When the Moon Is Swimming Naked: Australasian Poetry for the Chinese Youngster, edited by Kit Kelen and Mark Carthew for ASM Poetry/ Association of Stories in Macao.

The poems, which are published in English and Chinese, are “Grandma and the Mouses”, “Limerick on a Long Nose”, “The Elephant Who Lost His Tail”, “A Remembrance of Robins”, “Arum Lilies”, “Mosquito Haiku”, “Stars and Moon” and “In Line”.

All eight poems have been republished from Andrew’s book, Allsorts: poetry tricks and treats, and the first three can be read on this website here.

Axon: Creative Explorations has published one of Andrew’s poems, “Campfire Robins”, in its latest edition, Vol 3, No 2, October 2013.

Axon is a scholarly and non-commercial journal of creative practice and theory published under the auspices of the University of Canberra.

Andrew’s poem can be read on the Axon website here: http://www.axonjournal.com.au/issue-5/campfire-robins

One of Andrew’s poems has been published in the November 2013 issue of FreeXpresSion magazine. The editor selected the poem “Suddenly Gladdened”  to accompany a favourable review of Gestures of Love: The Fatherhood Poems.

The painter has chosen Andrew’s poem “Beachcombing” to accompany his painting “Wintertime, Bathurst Lighthouse in the distance”..

Concerning rottnest island, the publisher states: “Just 19 km off the coast of Fremantle in Western Australia, Rottnest Island – fondly known as ‘Rotto’ – is visited by over half a million people each year. Award-winning artist Brian Simmonds brings one of Australia’s iconic islands to life with his oils and mixed media colour paintings and sketches. Simmonds’ beautiful paintings and illustrations accompany uniquely local poetry and prose from well-known Australian writers such as Tim Winton and Craig Silvey.”.

rottnest island also includes poems by two fine Western Australian poets, Hal Colebatch and Nicholas Hasluck.

One of Andrew’s poems, “Reading at Lunchtime”, is represented in current issue of Meanjin (Volume 72, Number 3, 2013). Details about this issue of Meanjin can be found here: http://meanjin.com.au/editions.

Andrew’s Meanjin poem is reproduced below:

Reading at Lunchtime

 

A drop I squeezed

from a lemon slice

 

missed the plate

of battered fish

 

and hit the book

of Chinese poems—

 

fell, to my distress,

on a stanza by

 

an unknown poet

Confucius included

 

in The Book of Songs

he compiled

 

500 years before

the first coming of

 

the Man of Sorrows.

Such a bitter drop—

 

on the clean paper

it left a stain like a tear.

 

          © Andrew Lansdown

Andrew’s poem, “Temple Ladle”, a choka written after visiting Hozen Temple in Osaka, Japan, has been published in the latest issue (Volume 3, Issue 1) of the Australian Poetry Journal.

Andrew’s poem “Afterphase” has been included in the Inkerman & Blunt anthology Australian Love Poems 2013, edited by Mark Tredinnick.

Publisher Donna Ward states in the front of the book that 632 people submitted 1,501 poems for the anthology, of which 200 poems by 173 poets were chosen.

Australian Love Poems 2013 can be purchased from bookshops and from Inkerman & Blunt Publishers – http://inkermanandblunt.com/home/