Dress Rehearsals

Named as one of the Guardian’s Best Books of 2023My femininity is not a survival instinct, it is a song.In their brilliant new poetry collection, Madison Godfrey documents a decade of performing womanhood, from teenage fangirl to tender femme. Godfrey’s poems approach the autobiographical body as a site of the everyday and the surreal: experiencing first crushes, mosh pits, sharpened nails, gender euphoria, and the complicated colours of desire and memory.Darkly witty and deeply confessional, Dress Rehearsals is a love story to the queer self. This coming-of-age memoir asks, what does it mean to wear femininity into the world, when it constitutes both a bullseye and a ballgown?‘Unlike anything else you’ll ever read.’ – InStyle Australia’I inhaled this book.’ – Dylin Hardcastle, author of Below Deck’Madison Godfrey wields words with exquisite precision and Dress Rehearsals is as taut, seductive and deadly as a femme fatale herself. These are poems to impale yourself on. A work of distilled genius.’ – Yves Rees, author of All About Yves

Author Biography

Madison ‘Maddie’ Godfrey is a writer, educator, and emotional feminist. They have performed poetry at The Sydney Opera House, St Paul’s Cathedral and Glastonbury Festival. Madison is a previous recipient of the Kat Muscat Fellowship, the Varuna Poetry Flagship Fellowship and was recently awarded a WA Youth Award for their ‘Creative Contributions’ to the state. Currently Madison is completing their PhD and living on Whadjuk Noongar land with a rescue cat named Sylvia.