Press

EcoTheo Collective

“These poems embrace that accumulation, celebrate it, linger in it. And this is certainly a book for lingering in. Barnes has a built a collection that rewards you for spending time in its lines. The more time you do spend with these poems, the more you see in them. These are not only poems of resistance, but poems of resilience. How we survive, how we carry on—not how we move on from grief or from trauma, but we move on with grief, with trauma, with the weight of our past experiences carried into our present, our future…There’s such tender hope in these lines. Of course a poem about grief doesn’t end grief. Of course an elegy doesn’t bring back a lost loved one. And yet—for a moment—sort of—maybe it does. That’s the act of faith, the reason for poems, the kind of beauty that permeates You Do Not Have to Be Good from start to finish.” —Amorak Huey, reviewing You Do Not Have to Be Good

periodicities: a journal of poetry and poetics

“I found it very pleasurable to turn the pages and look for links between images, movements and textures of light. Barnes’s manipulations of light, using ‘matches, sparklers, moonlight, sequins, timers, apertures, flash, motion, layers…’ evokes a kind of written language…we are invited to imagine locations, movements, stories behind the foregrounded light traces. This activity, looking slowly and carefully beyond what is highlighted, feels much like reading a poem.” —Genevieve Kaplan, reviewing Light Experiments for periodicities: a journal of poetry and poetics, 2020.

Quail Bell Magazine

“You Do Not Have to Be Good is an emotionally imaginative debut, showcasing Barnes' use of lyrical anecdotes to creative a memorable and reflective collection of poetry. The collection is partially dedicated to ‘all queer disabled women and non-binary folks everywhere,’ and is one individuals in those categories should seek out. And even if the reader doesn't fall into those demographics, it's still a marvelous debut that builds vivid scenes and images, told in such language that the reader surely won't forget any time soon.” —Reviewer Alex Carrigan

Large-Hearted Boy

“Profound and ambitious.” —David Gutowski, reviewing You Do Not Have to Be Good

Sundress Reads

“Madeleine Barnes’ You Do Not Have to Be Good layers memory and the metaphysical in order to create a thought-provoking collection. It gives a voice to those within marginalized groups, offering ideas of potential in a beautiful, lyrical manner…they can be the equivalent of a shining galaxy.” —Reviewer Ashley Hajimirsadeghi

Glass Poetry Review

“Light Experiments by Madeleine Barnes Porkbelly Press, 2018 is hand-bound with linen thread, and hand-waxed with beeswax. You will want to close your eyes and run your fingers over the hand-torn cover with its debossed lettering — they prepare the reader to forego usual ways of seeing. The book opens with a Gwendolyn Brooks quote: ‘Books are meat and medicine/and flame and light and flower/steel, stitch, cloud and clout,/and drumbeats on the air.’ The exhilarating roll-out that follows includes nine double-page, high-contrast photographic spreads that are technically black-and-white, though I’m betting if my eyes had as many cones as a bird’s, I would see a new palette altogether — such is the book’s ability to suggest.” —Lynn McGee, reviewing Light Experiments