Description

"The Home We Never Leave" by Don Gutteridge is a reverent ode to childhood, nostalgia, and growth, The Home We Never Leave by Don Gutteridge is a touching collection of heartfelt poems from this prolific voice.

Delving back through his own vivid recollections, like a librarian thumbing through a card catalogue, the poet effortlessly pulls readers into snippets of memory, from the details of his wise grandmother's intimate garden to the wild games of schoolyard Prisoner's Base. Dreamy musings on beloved girls next door blend with tales of boyhood bravado and the blur of smiles on his first chosen family. Gutteridge is always adept at capturing the gentle spirit of youth, yet framing it through the experience of age, and that motif feels particularly sharp here. There is an arc to this collection, encompassing joy, maturation, grief, and resilience; many of the pieces are reflections on the past, while others are written in loving memory, for those whom the poet has lost over the years.

Despite their free verse nature, these poems show a deep respect for rhythm and the natural flow of language, while also highlighting the poet's clever tongue and aesthetic ear. The poetry is rich and meticulously constructed, with playful experimentation in enjambment, and a marvelously broad vocabulary of description. Utilizing unique imagery and attention-grabbing turns of phrase, this homage to innocence is powerful without being overly sentimental, for one of Gutteridge's strongest collections.