Selected by Joy Harjo as the winner of the Walt Whitman Award of the Academy of American Poets
'Taut, ferocious . . . This is a book about survival, and a welcome, confident debut' New York Times Book Review
Emily Skaja's debut collection is a fiery, hypnotic book that confronts the dark questions and menacing silences around gender, sexuality and violence. Brute arises, brave and furious, from the dissolution of a relationship, showing how such endings necessitate self-discovery and reinvention. The speaker of these poems is a sorceress, a bride, a warrior, a lover, both object and agent, ricocheting among ways of knowing and being known. Each incarnation squares itself up against ideas of feminine virtue and sin, strength and vulnerability, love and rage, as it closes in on a hard-won freedom.
Brute is absolutely sure of its capacity to insist not only on the truth of what it says but on the truth of its right to say it. 'What am I supposed to say: I'm free?' the first poem asks. The rest of the poems emphatically discover new ways to answer. This is a timely winner of the Walt Whitman Award, and an introduction to an unforgettable voice.
Roxie Nafousi
Roxie Nafousi
Laura Shepperson
Aamna Qureshi
Steve Cavanagh
Adele Zeynep Walton
Tessa Bickers
Sarah Hornsley
Taffy Brodesser-Akner
Emma Chapman
Elizabeth Gill
Hanna Thomas Uose
Diane Ladd
Ana Huang
Gregory Maguire
Helen Nagle-Smith
Elora Cook
Hannah Deitch
Aman J. Bedi
Elsie Silver
Venki Ramakrishnan
Genevieve Kingston
Jane Thynne
Katherine McLaughlin
Vinson Cunningham
Tilly Rose
Robert Ingpen
Chetna Makan
Bruce Jones
Scott Walker
Aman J. Bedi
Brandon Sanderson
Rosalind Brown
Kate Kemp
Jessie Hewitson
Hillary Yablon
Christopher Buehlman
Tim Budgen
Suzanne O’Sullivan
Dr Tara Porter
Andrew J. Scott
Oliver Moody
Mick Herron
Carolina Rabei
Ella Dove
Bella Swift
Adam Rutherford
Lucy Score
L.A. MacRae
Adam Forrest Kay
Tobias Buck
Haru Yamada
Kuchenga Shenjé
Tor Freeman
Patricia Graham
Tiffany Yu
Philippe Sands
Caroline Reid
M. R. Carey
M. R. Carey
Michael Mansfield
Elise Kova
Clare Mackintosh
Nalini Ramachandran
Kate Kemp
Ella Frears
Giles Murray
Walter Tevis
Tad Williams
Joanne Harris
Josh Malerman
Natalie Lawrence
Petroc Trelawny
Ace Atkins
Martin Salter
Chris Moore
Ivanna Dump
Taffy Brodesser-Akner
Hannu Rajaniemi
Dylan Jones
Daisy Dunn
Brian D. Mclaren
Artemis Cooper
Sarah E Hill
Valerie Boyd
Caroline Montague
James Doty
Oonagh Stransky
Cole Arthur Riley
Kim Sherwood
Mikael Krogerus
Mikael Krogerus
Mikael Krogerus
Mikael Krogerus
Mikael Krogerus