Portraits of Drowning

by Madeleine Dale

Genres: Poetry

96 pages, Paperback

Published December 3, 2024

Reviews

[Dani Ringrose · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an enormous privilege I've had to have been taught poetry and have had it rekindled under Madeleine's tutelage. This collection is tight and fiercely clever and rich with language. I have underlined so many beautiful phrasings, have re-read everything already, and want to pluck lines out to play with in my own writing.

Crush Fracture is so multi-layered and intertwined I could read it for hours with its heartbreak. The War Artist reminds me of one of my favourite Carol Ann Duffy poems. I loved all the ways that Percy Shelley's death were explored.

There is so much salt throughout this collection which I loved - for some reason, I've become obsessed with writing that things smell or taste salty at the moment, and I get gleeful when I see other creatives playing with things that I'm obsessed with at the same time.

"By the bitter pall of morning, I will be red-eyed
and ashamed of this - the full measure of hot blood."

"French pilots first perfected the candle turn,
but even Icarus would have learnt to bank

on borrowed wingtips and put the sun
in the tyrant's eyes."

"Flesh cannot history flesh."

[Julia Gorst · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely wonderful.

Some of my favourite poems from this collection are The War Artist, Sketch of a Man Drying His Hair After Nearly Drowning, Came Back Wrong, Give Andromache a Knife, FrogID, Sad Girls' Dictionary, and Kleinkill.

[Svetlana Sterlin]

“If only there were a wound. If only there were anything other than the green ants, hauling earth
to make more space.”

[Other Terrain · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Imagine Mary, waiting ten days by the yellow house

as if waiting for inspiration —

for the same raw-breeze must who turns oak leaves

over and breaks windfall fruit from its branch.” The Poet in Water

Poetry has been having a little popularity resurgence over the last few years, and who could resist a swirling wave-inspired cover? In Portraits of Drowning, Queensland academic and poet Madeleine Dale has created her debut collection of lyric poems.

At the centre of Dale’s poems is the theme of water, which weaves its way through our landscapes, lives, loves, history, and myths. For Dale, drowning can represent grief or our inability to let trauma wash away...(to keep reading this review, go to https://www.otherterrainjournal.com.a...).

Thank you to UQP for the early copy of this engaging collection.