BookView Review

BookView Review rated it:

GILDING THE LILY

New Poems: 2023

Don Gutteridge

Coming soon

Gutteridge’s heartrending latest collection (penned after the publication of “First Impressions: Early Days with Anne,” First Choice Books: 2023) takes readers on a journey across the landscapes of love, fond memories, and place. Dedicated to Guttridge’s wife, Anne, these intelligent poems fuse melancholy, pain, and sensitivity in a potent mix that cuts to the heart of what it means to live without someone when they are gone: “When I have reached my God-/ allotted days, I’ll save/ my dying breath to blow you/ the poem I’ve been penning/ since the time I first lay/ my loving eyes on yours.” Lyricism and careful attention to the line create a beautiful tapestry of expressions: “Whenever I praise your paintings/ or remark on their artful “bleeds”/ and “blues,” or commend the myriad/ ways your brush utters/ its dainty daubs, you give me/ the gaze that says, “No need/ to gild this lily.” In “IF I WERE THE BARD,” he writes, “If I were the Bard of Avon/ I should compare thee to a summer’s day/ and sing you a goodly sonnet.” Somewhere else, he reminisces about his early days with Anne: “On our daily commute to school/ and back, at five each day/ we stop to nosh at the Swisse/ bistro with the quaint Tyrolean.” As the narrative unfolds, other memories also surface, of family and friends, of adolescent mischiefs, of time spent in the country and later in the city, unraveling a man who has lived and loved fully and with passion. Sophisticated, nostalgic, and heart-touching, this is a remarkable achievement.

***