Happy National Poetry Month! In honor of this annual celebration, I bring you two poems for double your reading pleasure. In each, poet Jason Tandon encapsulates the quiet delight which both poetry and our New England spring engender.

Terry House, Poetry Editor

I Finally Tried It

in memory of Mary Oliver

By Jason Tandon

On a hot spring day

when midges spawn and spasm

above the raked plots of dormant grass,

I filled the feeder

with an Eastern songbird blend—

black oil sunflower, cracked corn and millet—

removed my shoes, my socks,

laid down,

wiggled my toes

and waited.

Man Paddling Canoe with Dog

by Jason Tandon

The sky so white

there is no sky.

The water,

a tarnished plate of silver.

The dog sits dutifully.

No, sits like a king

who says nothing,

who looks around

unmoved,

his golden robe

shedding.

Jason Tandon is the author of five books of poetry, including This Far North (Black Lawrence Press, 2023) and The Actual World (Black Lawrence Press, 2019). His poems have appeared in Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, The Southern Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, North American Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, and elsewhere. He teaches in the Arts & Sciences Writing Program at Boston University. For more information, please visit https://blacklawrencepress.com/books/this-far-north/.