Madeleine Dale grew up on Tamborine Mountain and now lives in Brisbane. She holds first-class honours and a Masters degree in creative writing from the University of Queensland, where she is currently completing a PhD. Her first chapbook, On Fire with Dangerous Cargo, was published by Queensland Poetry in 2023. Portraits of Drowning is her first full-length collection.
'Madeleine Dale invites readers to contemplate a poetics of drowning in which memories surface, hazards submerge, and bodies sink breathlessly into depths of longing. This is the landmark debut I've been waiting for.' Bronwyn Lea 'Portraits of Drowning is a superbly crafted fusion of rich language, inventiveness, intellect, wit, and deep empathy - for the fragility and strength of nature, and the solitary swimmer.' Philip Neilsen 'At once prophecy and post-mortem, Portraits of Drowning delineates what is lost in the deluge, and what is found. This is a poetry of myth and history, hunger and glut - where bodies want for bodies, where water wants for baptism and burial.' Shastra Deo 'A book of exquisite skill and polish. This is lyric poetry at its best.' Thomas Shapcott Judges