Andrew Lansdown 

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

Andrew’s photograph—”Autumn in Sendai, Japan”—has been used for the cover of Valerie Volk’s poetry collection, Marking Seasons. This collection was published as a special edition Studio magazine (No. 161, 2024).

Andrew wrote a blurb for the back cover of Ron Heard’s poetry collection (illustrated by Sue Schindler), A Life Deserves Nine Cats, published by Ginninderra Press. The blurb reads: The first poem I ever published was titled, “I hate cats”. So, if I tell you I love this small collection of cat poems, you may get an inkling of how fine it is. Funny, insightful, moving and subtly crafted, these poems by Ron Heard are a pleasure to read for non-cat lovers: I imagine for cat lovers they might almost be Cat Heaven. — Andrew Lansdown

Andrew wrote a blurb for the back cover of Matthew Pullar’s poetry collection, This Teeming Mess of Glory, published by Resource Publications. The blurb reads: While reading Matthew Pullar’s poetry, one is struck by its simplicity and directness, prized qualities in any form of communication. His poems are mostly confessional and devotional in nature, and are without pretension or pride. It is refreshing, in an age when the political and the perverse seem to predominate in the arts, to read poems exploring the fundamentals of human existence—family, faith, failure and grace. Andrew Lansdown, Poet

            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

Studio magazine has published a review of Andrew’s book, The Farewell Suites, which was published in the United States by Cascade Books, an imprint of Wipf & Stock Publisher, in 2024. Written by the editor of Studio, Paul Grover, the review appears in Number 164, 2025, and begins: ‘Love and death are the two great hinges on which all human sympathies turn.’ B. R. Hayden Within Andrew Lansdown’s new book of poems we discover the power of love intimately connected with the power of death. This very special collection explores the grief, loss and love experienced by the poet as he bears witness to the

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.

    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.

Nicholas Hasluck launched Andrew’s latest collection of poetry, Filling the Emptiness, at the State Reference Library in Perth on Sunday 9 February 2025. Nicholas’ speech was published in the May 2025 issue of Quadrant magazine, and is reproduced in this post.   Fresh Light on the Everyday by Nicholas Hasluck   Nicholas Hasluck launched Filling the Emptiness (WA Poets Publishing, Perth, 2025, $25), at the State Library of Western Australia on February 9. We are here to celebrate the launch of Andrew Lansdown’s latest book of poetry, Filling the Emptiness, from WA Poets Publishing. I have known Andrew as a

Quadrant magazine has published a review of Andrew’s book, The Farewell Suites., which was published in the United States by Wipf & Stock in 2024. Written by academic and editor Jill Ireland and titled “Durable Hope”, the review appears in the March 2025 issue of Quadrant. It opens: The Farewell Suites treats a series of deaths in Andrew Lansdown’s family: a brother who died young, another who took his own life, a baby who died before birth, and his parents. While death may seem a forbidding topic for a collection of poetry, the poet’s sources of hope emerge as durable

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.

        Issue 160 (2024) of Studio magazine contains four of Andrew’s poems—”Last Laughs: two lyrics for my father”, “About Emptiness” (a set of three haiku) and “Among Autumn Maples” (reproduced below). One of Andrew’s photographs—of Osaki Hachimangu Shrine in Sendai, Japan—was used for the cover of this issue of Studio.   Among Autumn Maples I see four men walking in the midst of the fire … and the appearance of the fourth is like … Daniel 3:25   An affinity with those men in Babylon unfazed by fire— that’s what I feel as I walk through this

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.

Andrew’s poem “The Mother and the Idol” was shortlisted for the 2024 ACU Prize for Poetry and has been published in the prize anthology, Faith: 2024 ACU Prize for Poetry, edited by Robert H. F. Carver and Margot Hillel. “The Mother and the Idol” is a suite or set of five haiku (known as a “gunsaku”) focused on the stone statues and carvings of Jizo Bosatsu, believed by Japanese women to be the guardian of the souls of miscarried, aborted and stillborn children (known as “mizuko”, water children). The first haiku of this set is: For her mizuko a mother

Cascade Books, in imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers in Oregon in the United States of America, has published a collection of Andrew’s poems titled The Farewell Suites. It is the second poetry collection Andrew has had published in Cascade Books’ Poiema Poetry Series, the first being Abundance: New and Selected Poems (2020). As stated on the back cover, “The Farewell Suites is a collection of poems dealing with death and grief and arranged in sets focused on different member of the poet’s family—a brother who committed suicide, a child who died before birth, a father who slipped into delirium