Tackle Box by Matt Kraunelis

Matt Kraunelis is a gifted writer. I could praise his poetry for the flow of the language, the timeless themes, the skill of his craft. But what moves me is something much less tangible, something sublime that he captures behind the words. Open The Tackle Box and you will find yourself peeking voyeuristically into a soul that you cannot be sure is not your own. These are not poems about places, or people, or even tackle boxes. These are poems about what those seemingly commonplace things mean to us. And how they transform the world into a magical, beautiful place.

–Pilar Quintana, Chair, Grey Court Poets Anthology Committee

Rating: [5 of 5 Stars!]

“Reading Matt Kraunelis is like listening to ‘jazz vibrating from an ancient, titanic radio.’ Rooted in a sense of place and grounded by human emotion, these poems celebrate the ordinary moments in life.”

–Jay Atkinson, author of CITY IN AMBER and TAUVERNIER STREET

Rating: [5 of 5 Stars!]

Matt Kraunelis is from a place of poets: Bradstreet, Frost, Kerouac. He makes poetry out of what he sees and feels in the Merrimack River Valley, but geography is only a starting point. His rivers run from New England to Paris. In every location he fixes on the enduring elements of love and time and the natural world. Sometimes he plays language for its music and works the words in form; in other poems he lays out lines like talk, so that we hear ourselves in his compositions. With this collection, he takes his place among the American singers of “varied carols” that Whitman heard long ago.
–Paul Marion author of “What Is the City?” and “Strong Place”

Rating: [5 of 5 Stars!]