I really enjoyed this poetry collection. Rogers touched a lot on race, gender, misogyny, and sexuality in her poetry. As an avid reader, I also appreciated Rodgers' reference to libraries as being like a sanctuary for her. A safe place to explore herself and her sexuality. It is incredibly poignant now, considering many public libraries are under attack and children today are losing these valuable safe spaces. It was a short, but powerful collection. Rogers has a strong voice, and she used it concretely in Good Dress.

This debut poetry collection offers a profound exploration of what it means to be a Black woman in Detroit. Brittany weaves in elements like overdue notices and intake forms to provide a fresh take on womanhood,community, sexuality, and relationships.​​This experimental approach gives the collection a raw, evocative edge that’s hard to forget. While different readers may connect with various parts of the book, I was particularly drawn to the poems that delve into the contrast between our public selves and private lives. Thank you to NetGalley and Tin House for this advanced copy—I can’t wait to see what Brittany Rogers has in store for us next!

Rating: 4/5
(Gifted a copy on NetGalley in exchange for an honest review)

<i>Good Dress</i> is a strong debut poetry collection from Brittany Rogers and was a pleasure to read.

Thematically rich, <i>Good Dress</i> covers family troubles, murky relationships, local history, and a life attempting to hold steady against rough tides. While this means some ideas can feel initially scattered or, even worse, be compelling enough you wish the book was just that (I adore the running library poems!), they all come together in the end as a portrait of everyday life, with its immediate problems, looming history, and daily surprises. I really would like to see Rogers’ next collection as I feel it would be really easy to keep improving on this one.

<i>Good Dress</i> had a variety of topics but I found it fairly approachable. It would be a good book for even a casual poetry reader.

Got my hands on "Good Dress" by Brittany Rogers early - thanks NetGalley and Tin House!

Rogers covers a lot of ground, but it all fits together so well. It's coming-of-age stuff, but with a confident voice that doesn't fall into clichés. You can feel the nostalgia, but it's fresh and real. One minute you're at a cookout, the next you're pondering life's big questions. It's a wild ride, but it works.

This book's a keeper. Different parts will speak to different folks, but there's something here for everyone.

Good Dress was an excellent collection of poems. I like the reflection on calling Detroit home, its changing ways, and family. I appreciated the themes of migration and being a Black female.

When these poems hit, they hit hard. My favorites include "Bedside Baptist", "Elegy for Remembering", "Benediction, Israel Baptist Church", and "Treatment Plan", one of the many poems in this collection that take on the form of some sort of paperwork from a psychiatrist's office.

I think I will remember these lines for awhile:
"My father wept when he saw me in my wedding dress. What is it to love / a man most moved by watching you vow to obey?..."

Good Dress is arguably my favorite poetry collection of 2024. In general, I enjoy poetry as a genre, though I sometimes struggle to understand what the poet is talking about (typically the result of confusing language, oblique references, or convoluted imagery). For me, reading Brittany Rogers' poetry was the opposite experience. What I LOVED about her writing was the way that I could access the meaning and feeling of the poems, even if I wasn't particularly familiar with the subject matter. Rogers' writing style is descriptive, clear, vulnerable, and evocative. The poems, a collective tribute to being a Black woman in Detroit, are told in a particularly creative way, sometimes through library overdue notices, patient intake forms, or confidentiality policies, and I loved this experimental approach to her writing.

Thank you to NetGalley and Tin House for my advanced copy. I'm looking forward to reading whatever Brittany Rogers may write in the future!

ℝ𝕒𝕥𝕚𝕟𝕘: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ | 𝔽𝕠𝕣𝕞𝕒𝕥: 𝐸-𝐵𝑜𝑜𝓀

ℝ𝕖𝕧𝕚𝕖𝕨: 𝑮𝒐𝒐𝒅 𝑫𝒓𝒆𝒔𝒔 𝐢𝐬 𝐚 𝐬𝐭𝐮𝐧𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐝𝐞𝐛𝐮𝐭 𝐩𝐨𝐞𝐭𝐫𝐲 𝐜𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐥𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐜𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐛𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐢𝐭 𝐦𝐞𝐚𝐧𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐞 𝐚 𝐁𝐥𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐰𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐧 𝐠𝐫𝐨𝐰𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐮𝐩 𝐢𝐧 𝐃𝐞𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐢𝐭. 𝐈𝐭’𝐬 𝐜𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐁𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐲 𝐑𝐨𝐠𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐡𝐚𝐬 𝐚 𝐰𝐚𝐲 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐬; 𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐰𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐬 𝐜𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐛𝐞𝐜𝐚𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐫𝐞𝐟𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐥𝐲 𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐩𝐨𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐜 𝐯𝐨𝐢𝐜𝐞. 𝐒𝐡𝐞 𝐡𝐚𝐬 𝐚 𝐬𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐬𝐟𝐲𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐥𝐲 𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐝 𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐚𝐜𝐡 𝐭𝐨 𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐩𝐨𝐞𝐦𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐚𝐝𝐝𝐬 𝐚𝐧 𝐞𝐱𝐭𝐫𝐚 𝐥𝐚𝐲𝐞𝐫 𝐨𝐟 𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐠𝐭𝐡 𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡 𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐯𝐮𝐥𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲. 𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐜𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐥𝐨𝐫𝐞𝐬 𝐰𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐡𝐨𝐨𝐝, 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐮𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐲, 𝐬𝐞𝐱𝐮𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐫𝐞𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐩𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐭𝐲𝐩𝐞𝐬, 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐨𝐞𝐦𝐬 𝐭𝐚𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐨𝐧 𝐚 𝐦𝐞𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐡𝐨𝐥𝐲 𝐭𝐨𝐧𝐞, 𝐰𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐞 𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐚𝐬 𝐚 𝐜𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐛𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐨𝐟 𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐞. 𝐈 𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐤 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐟𝐮𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤𝐬 𝐛𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫!

𝒯𝒽𝒶𝓃𝓀 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝓉𝑜 𝐵𝓇𝒾𝓉𝓉𝒶𝓃𝓎 𝑅𝑜𝑔𝑒𝓇𝓈, 𝒯𝒾𝓃 𝐻𝑜𝓊𝓈𝑒 𝐵𝑜𝑜𝓀𝓈, & 𝒩𝑒𝓉𝒢𝒶𝓁𝓁𝑒𝓎 𝒻𝑜𝓇 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝒜𝑅𝒞! 𝒜𝓁𝓁 𝑜𝓅𝒾𝓃𝒾𝑜𝓃𝓈 𝒶𝓇𝑒 𝓂𝓎 𝑜𝓌𝓃.

hanks to NetGalley and Tin House for the ARC!

Brittany Rogers’s "Good Dress" is a wonderful debut collection, sustained by the feeling of end-of-summer reflection—those final days where one is uncertain whether the sun will sweeten or sour memory.

There’s a lot to admire here, particularly because Rogers covers so much thematic ground without the book ever feeling unfocused. Broadly speaking, each of the themes touch on a coming-of-age experience, but they coalesce because the writing seems so rightfully self-assured. We see nostalgia without cliché, and it’s immensely satisfying to follow a speaker who is in the pocket, simultaneously feeling herself while grieving what it took to get to that point.

Poems often live or die based on their turns, and Rogers maintains such enigmatic precision in how she does so, both stylistically and thematically. She clearly has a well-honed skill and a gift, and it feels almost mysterious to watch her pull so many disparate elements into conversation. She dances between archaic forms and register and hip-hop-tinged looseness, and she pivots effortlessly between sensorial descriptions of food and existential abstractions. These are poems that make you want to eat at a cookout before suddenly satiating that hunger with symbolic meaning.

I suspect different readers will gravitate toward different parts of the book, but I love the poems that wrestle with the distance between a public, documented self and a private self. Through repeated interludes from the Detroit Public Library—like an explanation of debt—or therapy-related documentation like “Intake Form,” the speaker presses against the constraints of “official” language, often allowing readers to see the space between a factual explanation and a truthful explanation. To me, these poems encapsulate the book's core.

"Good Dress" is so thoughtful about the ways society tries to simplify Black women, and Rogers offer the counterpoint of complexity at every turn.