Thank you to the incredible mentors & teachers I have had over the years: Scott Iddings, Dennis Brown, Stephen Frech, Carmella Braniger, Mary Leader, Wendy Flory, John Drury, Lisa Hogeland, Beth Ash & Rebecca Lindenberg—you have challenged me & made me consider the world differently; you have made me more thoughtful, more daring, more passionate & more disciplined. Thank you.

Thank you as well to the following people and institutions for their support & encouragement: the Purdue University MFA program, Kelli Russell Agodon & Annette Spaulding-Convy of Two Sylvias Press, Carl Phillips, Roxane Gay, the Association of Writers & Writing Programs, Southern Indiana Review, the University of Cincinnati Taft Research Center & the Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies program at the University of Cincinnati.

About the Author

EMILY SKAJA was born and raised in rural Illinois. She holds an MFA from Purdue University and a PhD from the University of Cincinnati, where she also earned a certificate in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Her poems have appeared in Best New Poets, Blackbird, Crazyhorse, FIELD, and Gulf Coast, among other journals. She was the winner of the Gulf Coast Poetry Prize, an AWP Intro Journals Award, and an Academy of American Poets college prize. She is also the Associate Poetry Editor of Southern Indiana Review. Brute is the winner of the Walt Whitman Award of the Academy of American Poets. She lives in Memphis.

The text of Brute is set in Sabon Next LT Pro.

Book design by Rachel Holscher.

Composition by Bookmobile Design and Digital

Publisher Services, Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Manufactured by Friesens on acid-free,

100 percent postconsumer wastepaper.