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.
The January 2021 issue of The Mozzie contains one of Andrew’s poems—a set (gunsaku) of 4 haiku titled “Japanese Reflections”.
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Andrew Burke is an Australian poet whose poetry keeps getting better with the passing years. Some of his poems can be read on this website, and can be read here.
Walleah Press recently released his New and Selected Poems, and it is a fine sampling of his work.
The Biographical Note in the front of the book states:
Andrew Burke is an Australian poet who has lived most of his life in Perth. After his birth in Melbourne in 1944, Burke’s family moved west to expand the family business. In his teens, Burke read ‘Beat’ writers, and they gained his interest more than school work. He published his first short story at 18. He has written on a daily basis ever since—stories, plays, poems, and—to feed family—advertising material and videos. From 1990, Burke taught creative writing and modern literature at universities, TAFE colleges and writing centres. In 2006, he and his wife Jeanette travelled to China where they taught at Shanxi Normal University, Linfen, and, on their return, they taught indigenous children in The Kimberley area of North West Australia. He now dedicates life fulltime to reading and writing.
Here is one of the “new” poems from Andrew Burke’s New and Selected Poems. It typifies the quirkiness and kindliness of much of his work.
NOTEBOOK: CAFE POEM
Waitress with
. .a happy face
delivers a ‘large Cap’
. .while my head
. .is down as
I write in this pad.
“Are you waiting on
. .anything else?
I look up.
. .“Just inspiration.”
She takes a step
. .back and
shakes it all about.
. .Stops. Shrugs.
“That’s all I’ve got …”I write her down, inspired
. .© Andrew Burke
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.
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.
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
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 rimdirects the brim-
ming rainwaterwhere to over-
flow, gliding slowor 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.
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.
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 starkand stags scent the heat of hinds on the breeze,
my soul apprehends as my sight perceivesthe 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.
Eucalypt: A Tanka Journal (Issue 28, 2020) has published one of Andrew’s tanka. It is reproduced below in the house style of the magazine:
in the darkness
lifting a piece of kindling
from the woodpile—
that appalling gummy sound
of a redback’s web, ripping© Andrew Lansdown