Review
"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
From the Back Cover
Kronen's Splendor represents the mature work of a poet doubly gifted. Page after page makes clear, this is a fully conceived, highly accomplished book that demonstrates the impressive range of a powerful talent. - Wyatt Prunty
Kronen's word wizardry not only provides a feast of formal patterns, but his poems are filled with passion and wit. - Maxine Kumin
Kronen repeatedly surprises the reader, not with the cheap tricks of a writer who is only interested in surprise, but with the insights of someone who has thought his way past cleverness and other glittering falsenesses to wisdom itself, even if it is a provisional wisdom. Splendor is a splendid achievement. - Andrew Hudgins
