LATEST DISCOUNTS & SALES: PROMOTIONS
Steve Kronen's (b. 1953) first book, Empirical Evidence (1992), won the Contemporary Poetry Series Competition. His collection, The World Before Them, was a finalist for the 1998 Di Castagnola Award from the PSA. His chapbook appeared in The Drunken Boat. Fellowships include the Sewanee Writers' Conference, Breadloaf, the Florida Arts Council, and the Cecil Hemley Memorial Award from the PSA.
"""Bookcase"" and ""bouquets."" ""No sir, a"" and ""viscera."" ""Beatles"" and ""meatless. ""You'd have to look to Paul Muldoon to find a more outrageous end-rhymer than Kronen. Or a quieter one. Kronen works extensively in fixed (and some feral) forms, but his lines, like Muldoon's, tend to be so metrically irregular and heavily enjambed that even the full rhymes barely register. It's a deliberately subdued music, more for the mind than for the ear. ""Splendor"" is Kronen's first book in 14 years, and every poem in it, one senses, had to earn its spot on the roster. He's very good at choosing metaphors he can extend without hyperextending. Any poet could personify ""Rocking Chairs from the Thirties,"" but Kronen actually humanizes them: ""Under a mocking wind, you'll throw yourselves, / dolorous and shamed Rockettes of the porch, / into the old routine. .../ Should you kick high, something/ might give, who once welcomed flesh upon/ your flesh."" Kronen's skill with the figurative allows him to borrow figures from familiar sources (the Old Testament, classical mythology), apply them to familiar subjects, and still produce something original. - Eric McHenry -- New York Times Book Review, December 10, 2006"
