Todd Boss often describes his poems as “simple.” And it’s true, the St. Paul-based poet draws from the unpretentious terrain of hearth and home in his work: married life, parenthood, walking with dogs in the woods, his childhood spent on the family’s Wisconsin farm. And Boss’s poems are warm and musical, as generous and inviting to the reader as a good host is to his dinner guests. There’s nothing unduly formal or aloof; he welcomes all comers.

All the same, having spent a fair amount of time thinking on his second collection, “Pitch,” I must disagree: Boss’s work may be accessible and plainspoken, but I’d never call it simple.

In fact, it’s the nuance that strikes me again and again as I turn these poems over in my mind — the fine gradations of timbre and tone, the satisfying complexity of the emotional palette and flashes of unexpected poignancy and turns of insight, as he moves within and between these poems. By turns playful and melancholy, pensive, witty and impassioned — “Pitch” is a full-throated plainsong for the human experience, sung in a Midwestern key. The details feel authentically and particularly Boss’s own, drawn from the idiosyncrasies of his lived experience, but as you make your way through the poems, his song is clearly yours, too, with a melody instantly familiar and resonant.

These are hymns for quotidian graces: the juicy bite of ripe fruit on a well-earned lunch break, a child’s unguarded melodies in a quiet house, a mother’s unerring ability to wring from the already-wrung-out washcloth yet one more “miraculous/ stream of silver dish wash/ into the day’s last gleam …”

In the poem, “Instrument,” there’s a wonderful passage:  “And we, / so used to the notion / that music is made of wood / wire / horsehair / pin,/ we recall: a cello/ is only a voice box after all –/ that the one surrounding it with elbows / torso / chin,/ is the real instrument/ the work resonates in –”

Boss is equally deft with the visual and musical possibilities of poetry. Words on the page echo the zig-zag tangle of excited dogs on a leash, or the passage of a marble through the Rube Goldberg levels of a tumble toy; or, as in the section given above, the side-to-side sway of a musician’s bow on cello strings.

“Pitch” follows a coherent, narrative line about the relationships that define a life, told by way of moving poetic vignettes about love and loss, abundance and sacrifice and daily small pleasures. His voice is indeed straightforward throughout, but thrumming with emotional acuity and authentic feeling. His critically acclaimed debut poetry collection, “Yellowrocket,” launched Boss onto the national stage; I have a feeling this one will ensure he stays there.

Boss will celebrate the launch of his second poetry collection, “Pitch,” with a reading at the Loft Literary Center March 14 at 7 p.m. in the Open Book center, 1011 Washington Ave., Minneapolis, Minn. For more information: toddbosspoet.com.