Wednesday, January 17, 2007

"Low Italian: Poems" by George Guida

The ANNOTICO Report

 

I haven't read, but I like the concept: Italian Ethnic consciousness, done in a poetic, satirical, entertaining and unpretentious manner.

 

 

Book Announcement

 

Low Italian: Poems

by George Guida

 

New York: Bordighera Press, 2006.

ISBN: 188441981X

Available on Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com and at your local bookstore.

 

 

Bordighera Press is pleased to announce the publication of George Guida's first collection of poems,

" Low Italian",  a finalist for the Bordighera Poetry Prize.

 

The poems in this collection portray the comedy and tragedy of ethnic consciousness in America.

They are written by an Italian American for the enjoyment of all.

 

Critical Praise for Low Italian

 

"'I'm through being Italian,' announces the title of the first poem in this book. Those of us who are not through with it

will get a headache from all the nods of recognition that George Guida's sharp and surprising poems will provoke,

as they move from bitter irony to lyrical tenderness and back again. Those who never were Italian will be given a

rare insight into what it feels like. And everyone will have a high time with Low Italian."

 

--Michael Palma, Author of A Fortune in Gold, Translator of Dante's Inferno and Poetry Editor of Italian Americana

 

"Guida is a comic genius who is writing some of the funniest, most successfully satiric poems about Italian American behavior and culture, and by extension, ethnicity in general. His work has the self-assurance of a master: his voice can be assertive, ironic, self-reflexive, harlequinesque,self-deprecating, and noble, all the time remaining spontaneous, unified, and faithful to its own unique vision.

 

This live-wire persona might be his finest creation*. Low Italian is an extremely impressive first volume, a gem box

with any number of gems worthy of being included in anthologies of contemporary American literature. Guida takes the entire social, cultural, and political scene as his territory. His deft handling of issues in Italian American ethnicity should also be of special interest to anyone concerned with ethnicity itself--which today means, to anyone concerned with contemporary American poetry."

 

--John Paul Russo, Author of The Future Without a Past, Director of Graduate Studies at the University of Miami, and Book Review Editor of Italian Americana

 

George Guida's other publications include The Pope Stories (The Sutton Press, 2005), a chapbook; and The Peasant and the Pen: Men, Enterprise and the Recovery of Culture in Italian American Narrative (Lang, 2003, ISBN

0820467308), critical essays. His writing has appeared in Barrow Street, Hurricane Blues, Inkwell, The Paterson Literary Review, Poetry New York, The Columbia Journal of American Studies, The Journal of Popular Culture,

Italian Americana, and other journals and collections. He has just completed a new collection of poems, and is currently working on a novel set partially in Upstate New York, and on an expanded collection of Pope Stories. A

performer and associate professor of English at New York City College of Technology, George co-founded and co-hosts the Intercollegiate Poetry Slam at the Bowery Poetry Club. He lives in New York City and Western New York

State. Visit his Web site at www.georgeguida.com.

 

 

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