Nature beckons to Riverdale poet

Nina Tassi

In the poetry of longtime Riverdale resident Nina Tassi, nature is not just one’s environment, but a force to be reckoned with.

“For me, the extremes of nature — mountains, oceans, wilderness — appeal the most because they have a profound spiritual resonance,” she said.

The sublime qualities of nature have inspired her latest poetry collection, “Spirit Ascending.”

The book, like all of Ms. Tassi’s work, is heavily influenced by her travels abroad. Her first collection of poetry, “Antarctic Visions,” was inspired by a spontaneous trip way down south.

“I went on a lark to Antarctica a few years ago, and it was a transformative experience,” the author said. “The pure snow and ice of this immense uninhabited continent overwhelmed me. It seemed like the beginning and end of the world at once.”

While “Antarctic Visions” focused on the simultaneous wonder and dread of the physical world, her next poetry collection, “The Jeremiah Tree,” fixed its sights on where the material and the spiritual intersect.

“I didn’t set out to write religious poetry; it just happened,” explained Ms. Tassi. “I think poems rise from one’s deep subconscious and sort of knock on the door of your heart and beg to be let out.”

“Spirit Ascending” features the same kind of peripatetic ruminations and spiritual awakenings that she explored in her earlier work.

“The Sky Is A Sick Mantle” conveys divine revelation through nature:

...Sky floats down; 
a silk mantle 
wraps loosely about my shoulders,   
makes me beautiful for you.
I glory in your gaze. 

Your eyes welcome the sky, 
you invite the sun to dazzle us, 
and you say: I will never leave you;
God’s breath, full of play, seems near.

Poetry has always been a passion for Ms. Tassi, but devoting herself to it full-time marks a shift from years of community journalism and teaching in higher education.

“Poetry always seemed like too high a calling for me, so after a few tries in college I forgot about it until one day, as an English teacher at Morgan State University in Baltimore, my dean asked me to start a creative writing program and told me to apply for a workshop for teachers and writers of poetry at New York University,” she said.

With some reluctance, Ms. Tassi applied. She still had some doubts after gaining admission.

“Well, forced by extreme pressure to produce a poem every day by 8 a.m., I did, and to my surprise returned to Baltimore a convert,” she said.

While her travels have brought her all the way to Antarctica, lately Ms. Tassi has found inspiration in Riverdale.

“I’m lucky to live on a high floor in an apartment overlooking the Hudson, and I never tire of watching the river flow along and the Palisades on the other shore — the peacefulness and beauty put me in the right frame of mind,” she said.