Overview

The Farewell Suites is a collection of poems dealing with death and grief and arranged in sets focused on different members of the poet's family--a brother who committed suicide, a child who died before birth, a father who slipped into delirium as he slipped out of life. These finely crafted poems capture the movements of the heart and are stunning tributes to love, patience, acceptance, and forgiveness. Though focused on the poet's own loved ones, the poems speak of and to the hearts of all readers, expressing our shared anxieties and sorrows at the passing of those we love. The collection as a whole is deeply comforting, being shot through with both human warmth and heavenly hope. Indeed, Lansdown's farewells anticipate reunion, when at last our mortality is overwhelmed by immortality.

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Reviews

"""Andrew Lansdown might be our finest living poet. Consider these features of his work: Its abundance, with seventeen published collections. Its unfailing clarity, without an obscure line anywhere. Its patent sincerity, with the poet never shielding his own heart. Its intellectual integrity, for no body of work has been more resistant to the cant of the times. . . . Its equally flawless perception of human relations, whether joyous or anguished. And through it all a blend of moral gravity, lightness of touch, and tender compassion, so there's always a saving grace at hand."" --Peter Kocan, poet and novelist ""It is immensely soul-satisfying to read Andrew Lansdown's confessional poems on the deaths of five of his close family members. Lansdown brings an acute sensibility into one of the most difficult of poetic subject matters: one's own immediate family. . . . Twenty-one closing poems form a compelling dialogue between Lansdown and his father on his daily visits to the hospital, with thirteen poems, by way of reflection, after his passing. Empowering and staggering poetry that stops time."" --Joe Dolce, poet composer ""Finely crafted, searingly honest, these poems peer deep within a place too often turned from, intensely and sensitively observing loss, grief, and memory, probing questions unasked and offering acts of love. In these Farewell Suites are invitations to see that before grief is love, beyond death is life, and beneath loss is family for 'time and eternity.'"" --Paul Grover, editor, Studio ""Andrew Lansdown's new poetry collection invites us into his experiences as son and brother, reflecting profoundly on the dwindling of life, on slow death and sudden death, and on the grief of those left behind. Lansdown burrows into meaning, uncovering connections and resonances that we sense are true, although we had not identified them ourselves. He endows minuscule objects and single moments with metaphorical significance that readers can't forget. It is an extraordinary gift, honed over decades of dedicated observation and wordsmithing."" --Jill Ireland, academic and editor"

Author Information

Andrew Lansdown is the author of seventeen poetry collections, two poetry and photography collections, two children's poetry collections, two short story collections, and three novels. His poetry has been widely published in journals, newspapers, and anthologies and has won a number of prestigious awards. His first Poiema Poetry Series book, Abundance: New and Selected Poems (2020), was shortlisted for the Australian Christian Book of the Year Award. He is an adjunct lecturer in creative writing at Sheridan Institute of Higher Education.

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