Octopus Magazine reviews Rhode Island Notebook

"Notebook is the intersection (collision?) of Gudding’s selves: father, lover, (ex)husband; academic, poet; spiritual/political/historical American driver. Often he shifts between these roles rapidly. Likewise, there is much protean movement poetically – tonal, formic, altitudinal changes that occasionally blend but usually break the ankles. And whereas much (serious) poetry hopes to grab but a few of these subjects and voices at a time, Gudding mashes them all together – certainly how one experiences the aspects of a life …

… Gudding is able to reinterpret American existence for us – in all its contradictions and pitfalls."