Debut poetry collection by Buffy Shutt
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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
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
In Recruit To Deny, Buffy Shutt enter spaces where women are contained and expected to “endure it all in a pretty silence.” From deep down inside, Shutt gives voice to a wily rage seeking its way out. I want to be every window, / every revolving door, / every department store facade, / every bank glass, / every skyscraper’s body, / every taxi’s windshield, the speaker declares in “What I’d Tell Frank O’Hara.” 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
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
Buffy Shutt is the author of Memos from the [20th] 21st Century (Bottlecap Press 2024) an innovative chapbook of poems disguised as corporate memos and animal magnetism (Yavanika Press 2024). A two-time Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee, Shutt’s poems have appeared in Anthropocene, Paper Dragon, Sonic Boom, Door Is A Jar, Dodging the Rain, Book of Matches, Split Lip Magazine, among others. A graduate of Sarah Lawrence College, she worked in Hollywood for 30 years as an executive, marketing features and documentaries. Recruit to Deny is her debut full-length poetry collection.