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"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.
About the author
Don Gutteridge was born in Sarnia and raised in the nearby village of Point Edward. He taught High School English for seven years, later becoming a Professor in the Faculty of Education at Western University, where he is now Professor Emeritus. He has published seventy-six books: poetry, fiction and scholarly works in literary criticism and pedagogical theory and practice. He has published twenty-two novels, including the twelve-volume Marc Edwards mystery series and a YA fable, The Perilous Journey of Gavin the Great, and thirty-eight books of poetry, one of which, Coppermine, was short-listed for the 1973 Governor-General's Award. In 1970 he won the UWO President's Medal for the best periodical poem of that year, "Death at Quebec." Don lives quietly in London, Ontario.
