Andrew’s Blurb For Joe Dolce’s Book

Andrew wrote a blurb for the back cover of Joe Dolce’s poetry collection, At the Noisy Cafe: Selected Poems 2017-2023, published by Busybird Publishing. The endorsement, excerpted by Joe from personal correspondence between Andrew and himself, reads:

I have given your poems a careful reading. I think they are among the best you have written. You handle the villanelle deftly, lightly, appealingly. When I read the first one, “The murder of Alberta King”, one that I read some time ago and immediately loved, I thought, what can Joe do to better this? And then I found you bettered it (or at least equalled it) time and again.

Andrew Lansdown, winner of the John Bray Notional Poetry Award, the Joseph Furphy Poetry Award and twice winner of Western Australian Premier’s Book Award.

Two poems in Studio

 

 

Studio magazine has published two of Andrew’s poems in issue Number 164, 2025. This issue of Studio also contains a review of Andrew’s 2024 poetry collection, The Farewell Suites. (See the next post, above, for details of the review by Paul Grover.) The poems, “I Do Not Forget” and “Could Have Been”, are reprinted by permission from The Farewell Suites.

New Book by Andrew – Filling the Emptiness

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.

Poem in StylusLit

The online journal StylusLit has published Andrew’s poem, “About Emptiness”. Appearing in Issue 12 (September 2022), the poem is a set of three haiku on a common theme.

As stated on the journal’s website, “StylusLit is an Australian, bi-annual online literary journal, which publishes poetry, short stories, creative non-fiction, novel excerpts, interviews and reviews.”

“About Emptiness” is reproduced below. You can also read it on the StylusLit website here.

 

Andrew to read at Perth Poetry Club on 1st September

Perth Poetry Club has invited Andrew to read on Saturday, 1st of September.

Andrew will give two readings: One will feature poetry from his latest book, Abundance: New and Selected Poems; the other will feature the poems of William Hart-Smith.

Perth Poetry Club meets every Saturday at 2.00-4.00 pm at the Moon Café, 325 Williams Street, Northbridge.

If unable to attend Andrew’s reading in person at the Moon Café, you can watch via Zoom. Learn how to connect to the Zoom meeting from the club’s website here.

 

 

 

4 Poems in Quadrant

Four of Andrew’s poems have been published in the January-February 2022 issue of Quadrant magazine. The poems are: “The Liminal Child”, “Night Petals”, “The Girl and the Papyrus” and “She”.

Dedicated to Andrew’s wife, Susan, the poem “She” consists of four stanzas, each rhyming ababb and structured like the traditional Japanese tanka (with 31 syllables arranged in 5 lines of 5,7,5,7,7 syllables).

She

for Susan

I now realise
she’s elect among ladies.
With my very eyes
I’ve seen her banish maybes,
bless God and suckle babies.

She can oversee
governments, griefs and gravies.
Given a chance, she
would heal the wolves of rabies
and quell the guns of navies.

She is the ropes
upon which my life rappels.
To her my hopes
cling like the claws of grapples,
rise like the spires of chapels.

She’s a world apart,
all daylight without dapples.
So help my dry heart,
she sets alight the maples
and adds the juice to apples.

© Andrew Lansdown

Abundance shortlisted for Australian Christian Book of the Year

Andrew’s latest poetry collection, Abundance: New and Selected Poems, published in the USA by Cascade Books, an imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers, has been shortlisted for the 2021 Australian Christian Book of the Year Award. The Award is organised by The Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge Australia Incorporated (SparkLit), and further details can be learned from the official website, SparkLit – Igniting Christian Writing.

The winner will be announced on 2 September 2021.

You can read several sample poems from Abundance here. Go here to purchase a copy.