Poetry. Italian American Studies. Imagine Jonathan Swift with an Italian American sensibility–that’s George Guida, a true original with the capacity to be hilarious, surreal and rueful, sometimes all at once. Whether he’s traveling abroad or in Florida (‘panhandle with mermaids… pray to the immigrants’ pink grapefruit god’), casting his eye on suburban life or satirizing the food-and-gangster obsessions of fellow Italian Americans, no detail escapes his penetrating gaze. In ‘The Sleeping Gulf, ’ you’ll find humor’s brooding underside and glints of light even in life’s ‘savage wood.’–Maria Terrone, Author of EYE TO EYE