Poem by Andrew Lansdown

Rhyme

I sing a rhyme for my daughter

of a teapot short and stout.

She mimes a clumsy kettle,

crooks a handle, points a spout.

The world is wide with danger,

my life is dark with doubt,

but a child commands me sweetly,

‘Come on, Daddy, dance and shout!’

Sometimes I sense my children

have turned my life about.

They top me up with gladness,

tip me over, pour me out.

            © Andrew Lansdown

From Andrew Lansdown's new book, Gestures of Love - 

Gestures of Love: The Fatherhood Poems

Andrew Lansdown

Wombat Books

(Capalaba, Queensland), 2013

136 pages

ISBN: 9781922074706

RRP $14.95

[GO TO "BUY BOOKS" PAGE]

Back cover blurb

Few poets have explored the weight and wonder of fatherhood like Andrew Lansdown.

Over the years he has established a high reputation for his subtle, insightful poems about his wife and children.

Acclaimed poet and critic Geoff Page has observed that “Lansdown has a very sincere and direct way of handling poems about his immediate family which subtly suggests great tenderness without becoming sentimental.” And world-renowned poet Les Murray has claimed that “no one writes of family love with more tenderness than he.”

Now, for the first time, Andrew’s widely-published, award-wining poems celebrating family life are gathered in one collection, Gestures of Love. These fatherhood poems are bound todelight and move all readers—not only parents, but also anyone interested in the joy, grief and quirkiness of the human condition.