How Australian Poet Maddie Godfrey Used Their Art to Heal From Trauma
Over the past few years, Maddie Godfrey has solidified their position as one of Australia’s most exciting poets. They have performed at The Sydney Opera House, The Royal Albert Hall and Glastonbury Festival, been published in Westerly Magazine, and released their debut poetry collection.
It’s a lot for anyone to accomplish, let alone a 24-year-old.
As Maddie tells Student Edge ahead of their performance at the KickstART Virtual Festival, they had no idea that poetry would become such a central part of their life.
(Maddie identifies as non-binary and uses the pronoun 'they'.)
"I first got into poetry because I was a kid who read a lot of books," Maddie says.
"I was an only child, so I surrounded myself with books growing up. I really loved storytelling, and the way that storytelling can capture an experience and share it with other people."
While Maddie remembers wanting to become an author from a reasonably young age, it wasn’t until they went to university that they discovered their passion for performing poetry.
"There was a unit that encouraged you to write and perform a poem. I performed one called 'Toxicity' at Perth Poetry Club, and that was the first time I ever performed a poem," they explain.
"Being a dramatic person, it was that live aspect of it that really clicked for me."
From there, Maddie became obsessed with writing poetry. In 2018, their debut poetry collection, How To Be Held was published, containing poems Maddie mostly wrote throughout their late teens while they were living in the United Kingdom.
As Maddie tells us, they wanted to write about healing from trauma.
"My early venture into poetry revolves a lot around trauma, particularly sexual trauma," they say.
"I really wanted to write a book that wasn’t about trauma but was about healing. There’s this quote from Beyonce’s Lemonade that I thought about a lot: 'If we’re going to heal, then let it be glorious.'"
Maddie also views How To Be Held as an ode to resilience, vulnerability and tenderness.
"My first book was dedicated to my teenage self, and all the ways they were resilient without even realising it," they say.
However, Maddie (who will be introducing the theme for KickstART Virtual this Thursday) highlights that practicing self compassion is still an ongoing struggle.
"I definitely have this real drive to be the absolute best I can be, and I never find myself being completely satisfied, which is both a blessing and a curse," they say.
"I think it can be a lot easier to be soft towards other people. I think self-compassion is really hard because we get told it’s egotistical or selfish."
Pictured: Maddie Godfrey (supplied).
In saying that, Maddie hopes that their work can help young people realise that it’s okay to be different.
"I think my work aims to start a conversation," they say.
"I am really lucky that I get to work with a lot of young women and young queer people and give them an example of how they can grow up being different, and how that isn’t something to be ashamed about."
Maddie feels strongly about nurturing young poets and believes they should give themselves permission to fail.
"I think we’re really invested in this idea of the perfect first draft, and this idea that we must be pushing out incredible content that’s ready to be published by the time it’s in our phone notes," they say.
"The truth is, if we wait for ourselves to write perfect things, then we just won’t write anything.
"Give yourself permission to have a terrible output, without it defining that you’re terrible at what you do."
Header Image: Rachael Barrett
