Home (poem)

Home, read by Matthew Little

Visual video for the poem recorded and edited by Matthew.

Home is an observational poem written by Matthew Little and is the first poem in his debut collection of poetry Hell in a Basket. 

About the poem

Home was written on April 28, 2013, shortly after Little returned home from visiting his then-boyfriend in Connecticut. After being at his boyfriend's house for so long, he grew accustomed to being in a place he called "a healthy and normal, non-dysfunctional house" and when he had to return to Massachusetts he was unhappy about the apartment he shared with his family.

Inspiration for writing the poem

Little stated that the idea to write a poem like "Home" came after he listened to the song "Fitter Happier" by the band Radiohead. After listening to it multiple times, the idea of writing a poem that showed an incredibly negative view point of his place of living seemed like a great idea, and he tried conveying a monotonic, depressing attitude like the song.

Style and synopsis

The poem originally was written in two stanzas, the first being the longest, 26 lines, while the second stanza only had 3. When it was published in Hell in a Basket, Little decided to break it up into six stanzas instead, which afterwards Little regretted doing, saying he thought it "disrupted the flow I was originally going for". It follows no rhyme scheme or any sort of real rhythm.

The poem describes the apartment Little lives in as a dirty, uncomfortable place, with lights that flicker "on and on", and says there are appliances that don't work right. The poem shifts to him looking around and seeing his grandmother laying on the couch with her dog, healing her broken hip while watching TV. Then he goes on about his room, which to him is his place where he escapes by laying on his bed with his laptop, and near there is the stairway leading up to his mom's room where he can sometimes hear her and her fiance fight while she (or they) are drunk, but mentions she's gone away (in present tense) to "mend her love for the bottle", meaning her alcoholism. He ends the poem by saying, "This is where I live/ I don't call it home/ but it is."

Reception

After uploading a picture with the poem's original text to the poetry forum site "DeepUndergroundPoetry", followers of his reacted positively, although one person mentioned they felt "it would be a lot stronger if it just ended at 'But anyway...'" but went on to say that "[It's] eye for detail and elegant phrasing is impeccable." Others were positive about its imagery, that "the last three lines add an extra sense of conflict. He shows his identity with it being a house, a place of dwellling, but denies it as a home, a place of love." [1]