5 poems in Quadrant

 

 

 

The latest issue (July-August 2021) of Quadrant magazine includes 5 of Andrew’s poems—”So Far South”, “Gleam”, “The Bodhisattva’s Bib”, “A Game of Anything”, and “Bamboo Triptych”.

“The Bodhisattva’s Bib” is a set of 4 haiku, while “Bamboo Triptych” is a suit for 3 tanka. “So Far South”, “Gleam”, and “A Game of Anything” are free form poems. “A Game of Anything” is reproduced below:

 

A Game of Anything

.
I am watching two little girls
like ducklings tottering

in line behind their mother—
only, they are making a game

of the going, taking care
with wing-flappings for balance

to keep in the lanky shadow
she is casting on the asphalt

as she trundles her trolly
in the late afternoon sunlight

through the shopping-centre carpark.

            © Andrew Lansdown

Poem in Eucalypt: A Tanka Journal

Eucalypt: A Tanka Journal (Issue 30, 2021) has published one of Andrew’s tanka. Andrew has titled it “This Upwelling”, although it was published without a title in Eucalypt. It is reproduced below in the house style of the magazine, without a title, an opening capital or closing full-stop:

it gladdens me,
this unceasing upwelling
of loveliness—
there are birds in the birdbath,
grandchildren in the branches

© Andrew Lansdown

Four poems in ROCHFORD STREET REVIEW

Rochford Street Review has published four of Andrew’s poem in its latest issue, Issue 31, 2021:1.

The poems are: “Little Things” (a set of 8 haiku); “After the Fishermen” (a set of 2 tanka); “Times of Fox-Dread” (a suite of 4 tanka); and “Petal Poems, Kyoto” (a 3-tanka suite).

The first haiku in “Little Things” is:

A flustering moth
on the lighted windowsill
in a gecko’s mouth.
.           .© Andrew Lansdown

The 4 tanka in “Times of Fox-Dread” were written after a visit to Fushimi Inari Taisha in Kyoto. The first tanka in the set is titled “Possession” and reads:

In old Japan
fear of foxes polluted
everyday life:
Oh, is that maid a vixen?
Is that sickness possession?
.           .© Andrew Lansdown

You can read the poems in full on the Rochford Street Review website here.

Poem in Eucalypt: A Tanka Journal

 

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

 

Four poems in Quadrant

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 stark

and stags scent the heat of hinds on the breeze,
my soul apprehends as my sight perceives

the 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.

Seven poems in six issues of The Mozzie

Over 2020, Andrew had seven poems published in six issues of The Mozzie.

In Vol. 27, Issue 9, March 2020 – “Saga Chrysanthemums” (a set of 4 tanka).

In Vol. 27, Issue 10, May 2020 – “Kilter” (a set of 3 haiku).

In Vol. 28, Issue 1, June 2020 – “Sandbathing Sparrows” (a set of 2 tanka).

In Vol. 28, Issue 2, July 2020 – “The Martyred Mother”.

In Vol. 28, Issue 3, August 2020 – “Durable Impressions” (a set of 3 haiku).

In Vol. 28, Issue 3, August 2020 – “Leafy Seadragon”.

In Vol. 28, Issue 4, September 2020 – “Little Endings” (a set of 6 haiku).

The poem “Sandbathing Sparrows” (below) is a gunsaku of two tanka that were published individually in Andrew’s book, Kyoto Momiji Tanka: Poems and Photographs of Japan in Autumn. (Go here for information about Kyoto Momiji Tanka.)

Sandbathing Sparrows

By the Kamo River, Kyoto

.      .1

Sprawl

The sparrows sprawling
on their sides, kicking their legs,
fluffing their feathers,
are miming the meaning of ‘Nice’
while sandblasting away their lice!

.      .2

Surrender

Washing their plumage
in a patch of river-rinsed sand,
the sparrows give them-
selves over to feelings of bliss,
as do we, to be watching this.

        © Andrew Lansdown

 

POEM IN FREEXPRESSION

Andrew’s poem “Kyoto Autumn Maples” has been published in the February 2020 issue of FreeXpresSion magazine. This set of six tanka won the 2016 Melbourne Poets Union International Poetry Prize and are included in Andrew’s latest poetry/photography collection, Kyoto Momiji Tanka: Poems and Photographs of Japan in Autumn.

Poem in The Mozzie

The Mozzie has published Andrew’s poem, “Windbell with Bamboos” in Vol 27, Issue 6, August 2019. “Windbell with Bamboos” is a suite of 3 tanka that is included in Andrew’s recent collection, Distillations of Different Lands.

“Windbells with Bamboos” is a tanka suite rather than a tanka sequence, as each tanka is a self-contained poem. Nonetheless, placed together the poems make something larger than themselves.

Windbell with Bamboos

        1
Verve

I see it again
in the sacred trinkets stall
at Inari Shrine—
the little windbell voicing
its verve on my veranda.

        2
Relocation

I dangled it there
among the Buddha bamboos
in the shiftless air—
the windbell that days before
had dinged too much by my door.

        3
Unintended

It’s not quite what I
wanted when I hung the wind-
bell in the bamboos:
they cherished it as their own
and coddled to death its tone.

          © Andrew Lansdown

Four poems in Studio – And Praise from Les Murray

Studio magazine published 4 of Andrew’s poems in its No. 146, 2019 edition. The poems are: “Of Maples and …”, a set of 5 tanka; “Bamboo Forest, Arashiyama”, a set of 3 haiku; “Windbells at Fushimi Inari Shrine”, a set of 3 tanka; and “The Shogun and the God”, a set of 2 tanka.

The final haiku in “Bamboo Forest, Arashiyama” reads:

With sky for dojo—
the giant timber bamboos
practising kendo.

          © Andrew Lansdown

This issue of Studio also contains a favourable review by Garry Furnell of Andrew’s recent poetry-and-photography collection, Kyoto Momiji Tanka, which can be purchased through this website here.

Additionally, the first page of Studio 146 contains a statement by the late Les Murray about Andrew. In a tribute to Les, the editor of Studio, Paul Grover, quotes from a postcard he received from Les in 2006. Among other things, Les told Paul, “As for Andrew Lansdown, he’s one of our very best poets, spitefully ignored most of the time.”