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.
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