How to Feel Confident with Your Special Talents

by Carol Guess, Daniela Olszewska

Poetry. "These prose poems are the best kind of sly and funny, subversive and wise."—Sarah McCarry

"Like everyone else, I am desperate to get it right, to know how to dress for the Ouija board or how to stop being in love with people I'll never meet. The volume of what we don't know, what we need to know NOW could drown a lonely surfer, but Guess & Olszewska have the skills and the code that will bring us back to life. They comb, channel, and distill the ether. They answer the questions beating so secretly in our chests, we didn't know to ask them. They build a stunning pedagogy of the surfpressed. I would like to live in the world where these were the answers and allegories Googling provided. Let's put on a dramatic amount of make-up, set a small fire for the smell of singed crosshair, and tell the birds nesting in the eaves that it's over. This book emits a peculiar, beguiling, electric calm."—Danielle Pafunda

Genres: Poetry

88 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2014

Reviews

[Gerry LaFemina · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love good prose poems, and there are some good prose poems in this book. Unfortunately 80-85% of the prose poems in this collection use the same strategy of linguistic leaping that makes them blur together as they get tonally and poetically repetitive in a way that perhaps is deliberate, but didn't make the book as a whole resonant.

[Sheldon Compton · Rating 2 out of 5]

Just seemed like a lot of word-play trying to convince me they were witty. I picked that up with the first one I read, that they’re witty. After that I was looking for some actual insight. Oh well. It’s not for everybody.