His first book of poetry, Signals (USC Press, 2008) won the 2007 SC Poetry Book Prize. He was selected for inclusion in Best New Poets 2007, edited by Natasha Trethewey, as well as Best Gay Poetry 2008. His poems have appeared in many journals and anthologies, including The Book of Irish American Poetry from the Eighteenth Century to the Present (Notre Dame) and The Southern Poetry Anthology: South Carolina (Texas Review Press). He is also the author of Tiresian Poetics, a study of modernist poetry, and editor with Marti Lee of Geographies and Genders in Irish Studies. Madden is also the writer in residence at Riverbanks Botanical Gardens in Columbia and an artist in residence at the Palmetto Center for the Arts at Richland Northeast High School in Columbia.