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.