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
Ellpitical movements
“The idea of loss and death is central to the book, the deaths of friends, lovers, family and of the speaking ‘I’ are woven in a tapestry of shared experience. But against the shadow of death, Barnes posits the light of friendship, love & family, & above all, love, the force that compels us to live in the face of death. It is this resilience that shines through in these carefully crafted poems.” —Billy Mills, reviewing You Do Not Have to Be Good
beltway poetry quarterly
“The book is iron, metal and diamond, anchoring the reader to the embryo and blood coursing through its lines…Barnes’s You Do Not Have to Be Good is a telescope through which you will find that which you love or grieve most intensely. I invite you to read for yourself, to find the poem that burns the brightest for you: ‘to contradict / a death, one must believe they can / still hear a sunrise.’” —Reviewer Sara Cahill Marron
frontier: exceptional poetry from around the web
“This poem by Madeleine Barnes is astonishing. There’s something hard and luminous about it, as it builds down the page, in long lines that seem almost “unaware / of their authority, self-mastered.” I admire Barnes’s bold, abstract nouns – “childhood,” “speculation,” “authority,” “expectancy” — which stud her lines like “metallic gifts.” Like the best poems, “To Charge Forward’ charges into the mind and fixes there.” —Felicity Sheehy’s comments on “To Charge Forward”
periodicities
“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
“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
QUAIL BELL MAGAZINE
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