Quality of Life

“On the evidence of these terrific poems, Jason Tandon wants a little peace and quiet, but must have suspected from the get-go that it’d be a long-time coming, if ever. That’s okay-in the meantime, he’s keeping himself (and us) entertained (and instructed) with his tart, funny, sorrowful renderings of life as it’s lived all over our perishable republic. Reading this wise book made me feel as if my breathing space had expanded in many basic if mysterious ways-it will enrich your oxygen too.”

-David Rivard

In Quality of Life, Tandon carves a space for the essential unknowability of moments, an unknowability that extends to the past and continues to unsettle the things we did, who we were. This book is a helpful journey to where we find ourselves, and what we have to show for it, our place in this world, this “one big ravine” that doesn’t revolve around us. These poems are a friendly, human reminder of how we drink and dream, making up the sense of it all.”

-John Gallaher

The poems in Jason Tandon’s Quality of Life meditate on loss, love, the complexities of memory, the way, perhaps, snowdrifts seen from the road recall a sheet covering the body of an old friend lost at sea. Or they speak of our need to hold onto moments of clarity, epiphany, or self-knowledge even as they slip past us: a “field of sunflowers / that have tilted their heads to the sky / beside the barn freshly painted / a candy apple red” or the moon “like a sickle’s blade” that “clatters across the lake.” These poems, so many of which exist in the sphere of the familiar-the memory of a piano teacher, a dog bounding through the grass-are acutely observed, thoughtful, occasionally whimsical, and composed with elegance, fine music, and grace. Quality of Life is a delight.”

-Kevin Prufer