WA Poets Publishing released a new collection of Andrew’s poetry in February 2025. Titled Filling the Emptiness, the book contains 90 poems on varying subject and in varying forms. The book also contains a six-page Introduction written by Andrew.
You can read more details about Filling the Emptiness, and four sample poems, on this website here.
Copies of Filling the Emptiness can be purchase through the BUY BOOKS page on this website for $25.oo, postage included.
Andrew’s poem “The Plumegrasses of Kyoto” is included in Poetry d’Amour 2024. The anthology is published by WA Poets Publishing (WAPP) and contains poems selected by Shey Marque from the 2024 Poetry d’Amour Love Poetry Contest.
Andrew’s poem, a tanka, is a love poem for his wife, Susan. Quite unrelated to Andrew’s poem, however, the anthology carries a content warning regarding some explicit material.
Laurels, a webzine published online by the Tanka Society of America, published one of Andrew’s tanka in its August 2024 issue (#2). This issue was devoted to lighthearted and humorous tanka known as “kyoka”.
The entire issue of Laurels can be read here: https://www.tankasocietyofamerica.org/laurels/laurels-2
Andrew’s poem, which is included in his forthcoming collection of 200+ tanka titled Little Studies in Loveliness, is:
with a little
moderation, I reckon
I can spin out
the pleasure of this cookie
by at least three or four bites© Andrew Lansdown
Andrew has had ten poems published in six issues of The Mozzie from June 2023 to February 2024:
Volume 31, Issue 5, February 2024 – one poem: “Increments of Beauty”
Volume 31, Issue 4, December 2023 – two poems: “A Not-So-Nonsense Poem” and “Preventive Measures”
Volume 31, Issue 3, October 2023 – two poems: “Concerning Austerity and Creativity” (consisting of two tanka, “1. Inspirations for Ikebana” and “2. Ikebana Dreaming”) and “Violets” (consisting of three haiku)
Volume 31, Issue 2, August 2023 – three poems: “Locations of Red”, “Aboriginal Rock Art” and “Sculptors”
Volume 31, Issue 1, July 2023 – one poem: “Starlight” (four haiku)
Volume 30, Issue 9, October 2023 – one poem: “Zuiho-in Zen Temple, Kyoto”
The current issue of Eucalypt: A Tanka Journal (Issue 34, 2023) contains a poem, a tanka, by Andrew. It is reproduced (in the journal’s style, without title or capitals) below.
how, I wonder,
how can it keep holding on—
the small spider
splayed in thin rigging between
the reeds the wind is shaking?© Andrew Lansdown
The May 2023 issue of The Mozzie contains a set a set of four tanka under the common title, “Found Art”. The first tanka in the set, “The Painterly Bird”, is reproduced below.
The Painterly Bird
A blackbird roosting
on a branch overarching
a lush violet patch
dollops some oily white paint
onto a small green palette.© Andrew Lansdown
The United States magazine, Relief: a journal of arts and faith, has published Andrew’s poem, “The Remarkable Maples, Kyoto”, a set of ten tanka.
All ten tanka are linked by a common subject (maples), a common setting (Kyoto, autumn), a common structure (five lines arranged in 5-7-5-7-7 syllables), a common technique (extended metaphor/conceit and a closing couplet rhyme/half-rhyme), a common tone (light, if occasionally subdued) and a common purpose (surprise and celebration). The final tanka is representative of the other nine:
Winter is too far
advanced to be arrested—
yet many a star
remain pinned to the maples,
the last of autumn’s marshals.
© Andrew Lansdown
Studio, No. 156, 2022, contains three of Andrew’s poems—”When They Came”, “Barking Geckos” and “The Bamboo Project”.
Two of Andrew’s Poems—”Kimberly Hand” and “Meditations On Impermanence”—have been published in inScribe: Journal of Creative Writing, No. 4, August 2022.
“Meditations On Impermanence” is a set of four tanka. “Kimberly Hand”, reproduced below, consists of two stanzas, each with a syllabic structure like a tanka.
Kimberley Hand
Stencilled on stone
in spattered orange ochre—
a hand that once held
a flint knife and a fire stick,
a war club and a child’s hand.It was, I suppose,
a hunter’s hand, this outline
in ochre spatter:
I suppose, too, none can tell
if he meant to wave farewell.© Andrew Lansdown
Volume 30, Issue 6 (January 2023) of The Mozzie contains a poem by Andrew. The poem, “After the Fishermen”, consists two tanka. The second, subtitled “Spillage” is reproduced below.
2. Spillage
Pluck a red petal
from a gerbera, string it
with other petals …
Now look at the gills spilling
from the severed salmon head …
© Andrew Lansdown