Extremely Lightweight Guns

“'A tooth-paste blue Chevy Nova,” 'the red bird of misfortune,' a rooster with 'bronzy dino-feet'—Extremely Lightweight Guns is a riot of colorful birds, electric passions, and lyric panache. There is an incendiary delight to these poems, which threaten to burst into linguistic and narrative flame on nearly every page. Hypnotic and dramatic, Nikki Moustaki writes with the kind of assurance that lets you know she is a voice to be reckoned with." —Campbell McGrath, author of Nouns & Verbs: New and Selected Poems

"I stand in awe and praise of this ambitious collection, possessed by an ardent determination to challenge our assumptions about what a poem is, or ought to be, and meant to dare us to rethink poetry and all its possibilities. Moustaki’s pure reverence and fascination for experimentation gives rise to poems that recast language, narrative, and voice, leaving us suspended, entranced, enraptured by the genius of her pure, undoubtable imagination." —Richard Blanco, Presidential Inaugural Poet, author of How to Love a Country

"Moustaki’s debut poetry collection demonstrates her ability to create lyrical friction between unlike things. By reminding the reader that gardenias and bullets can live in the same poem as they do in the same life, and even taste the same, Moustaki forces the reader to consider that beautiful things may be just as dangerous as they are vulnerable, and dangerous things can be beautiful too. Furthermore, these poems illuminate the way poetic line and image suit a survivor’s fragmented memory of traumatic events." —Rebellious Magazine