An evening with the Poet Laureate
Arrowtown Creative Arts Society (ACAS) and Queenstown Writers Festival are bringing New Zealand’s Poet Laureate Chris Tse to town. He’ll be performing this Friday alongside local poets, and will also host a Masterclass on Saturday.
Tse is a New Zealand poet, short story writer and editor. His works explore questions of identity, including his Chinese heritage and queer identity. Tse was named New Zealand’s 13th Poet Laureate (2022-2025).
Born and raised in Lower Hutt, he studied film and English literature at Victoria University. He is the author of three poetry collections published by Auckland University Press: How to be Dead in a Year of Snakes, HE’S SO MASC, and Super Model Minority. He and Emma Barnes also edited Out Here: An Anthology of Takatāpui and LGBTQIA+ Writers from Aotearoa, the first major anthology of queer writing from Aotearoa.
His performance will include readings from his previous collections, exploring identity, plus new poems that focus on how we capture and express joy, particularly during times of crisis and uncertainty.
“Initially I was reluctant to write about my identity and experiences,” Tse says. “My earliest work was about my great-grandfather immigrating to Aotearoa, and my first full-length book revisited the murder of Joe Jum Yung in 1905. Eventually, identity became a strong focus of my poetry, as seen in HE’S SO MASC, which was about coming out and the intersection of my Chinese and queer identities. I explored this further in Super Model Minority.
“Joy has been present in a lot of my work – for example, in references to my favourite singers and films – but lately I’ve taken a greater interest in writing about how we create and sustain joy, particularly when the world’s on fire.”
Tse believes that poetry and the arts are extremely important to the youth, too. He personally loved all forms of art from a young age and wanted to try his hand at everything. Being involved allowed him to find his first communities and peer groups – it’s been instrumental in how he’s explored his identities. He’s seen how young people use arts to not only express themselves, their fears and their anxieties, but also the joy they take from it.
“I also see how important it is for them to see themselves represented in art to show that they’re not alone and to see that being an artist can be a career pathway.”
In the Masterclass, Tse will lead participants in reading and discussing several poems to explore a range of voices from contemporary New Zealand poetry. The class will also be given prompts for writing exercises.
“We’ll be doing some close reading of a few poems as a group and use the discussion to explore the techniques that poets use and to think more broadly about what’s happening in contemporary poetry. I want it to be a safe and relaxed place for people to try their hand at writing some poems – no one will be forced to share what they’ve written.”
Tse explains that he often hears from people that they don’t ‘get’ poetry, or they have a very narrow view of what poetry looks or sounds like. He would encourage anyone to attend an open mic night or poetry reading to expose themselves to different types of poetry, giving them a broader sense of what’s out there.
“They can also dip into journals and anthologies like Best New Zealand Poems, Starling or Bad Apple to see how varied contemporary poetry is. Sometimes ‘getting’ a poem isn’t the way to approach it – sometimes just enjoying the sounds and rhythms or the imagery it evokes can be more than enough.
"There’s also a lot of collaboration between poets and other artists – for example, poets accompanied by musicians and dancers, or films based on poems. These collaborations and performances are changing people’s expectations of how poetry can be presented and enjoyed.”
Tse’s time as Poet Laureate is coming to an end with voting closing for the next one at the end of July.
“The next Poet Laureate will be announced on National Poetry Day [22 August] and there will be heaps of other events taking place around the country – a great opportunity to discover a new favourite poet or poem! There’s a calendar of events on the National Poetry Day website,” Tse says.
Chris Tse will perform at Sherwood at 7.30pm on Friday, 8 August, and will host a Masterclass at Te Atamira on Saturday, 9 August. More information and tickets can be found at acas.nz/event-list
