April 2023
/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/.