Recruit to Deny

By Buffy Shutt

In Recruit to Deny, Buffy Shutt reminds us that poetry is not only about the well-chosen image or the arresting turn of phrase. Though Shutt is a master curator of imagery and effortlessly spins gorgeous lines, her stunning debut collection reminds us that poets are-first and foremost-storytellers. Each poem displays an enviable command of narrative and a breathtaking mastery of intentional, purposeful withholding. Shutt is an exciting and necessary voice in the contemporary literary landscape.

KRISTINA MARIE DARLING, author of Daylight Has Already Come and Dark Horse

Buffy Shutt's debut poetry collection, Recruit to Deny, is a fierce anthem of the working women of the patriarchy, of icons of desire, of the sacrificial mother, of the daughter-pawn, the girl on a date. I feel a peculiar wickedness/rise up from/my ankles, Shutt writes. Her particular wickedness in the face of harm and danger disarms us with vulnerability, humor, and power in the most unexpected, wild places of the self.

MARCELA SULAK, author of City of Skypapers and Mouth Full of Seeds

Strong, daring, honest, these beautiful poems are an ode to work, motherhood, longing, movies, #metoo. #allofus will relate, be moved, startled, changed by Buffy Shutt's unbuttoning of the baby blue sweater so many of us have worn. Shutt dives into the uncomfortable truths we often look away from but keeps us there until the air we come up for is pure and refreshed.

Recruit To Deny is a wonderful collection-a brave, authentic, surprising view of a rich life spent on the front lines of being fully human and completely alive.

KIM DOWER, Former City Poet Laureate of West Hollywood, author of five collections including I Wore This Dress Today for You, Mom

In Recruit to Deny, we encounter an original voice that startles with wry metaphors, vivid paradoxes, and eloquent shifts. As Buffy Shutt explores the dynamics of workplace power, gender roles, cultural expectations, environmental outrage, and more, her poems enter spaces where women are contained and expected to "endure it in a pretty silence." From deep down inside, Shutt gives voice to a wily rage seeking its way out. This bracing collection tallies the myriad negotiations between what is allowed and disallowed, said and unsaid, the chilling tightrope walk of desiring and being desired.

ELLINE LIPKIN, author of The Errant Thread

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1945023376
• ISBN13: 9781945023378
• Release Date: March 2025
• Publisher: Indolent Books
• Length: 102 Pages
• Weight: 0.32 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.2" x 6.0"