Chris Tse, New Zealand Poet Laureate 2022–2024

 

Self-portrait Chris Tse. Photo supplied. 

Chris Tse (he/him) was born and raised in Lower Hutt. He studied film and English literature at Victoria University of Wellington, where he also completed an MA in Creative Writing at the International Institute of Modern Letters.

His poetry, short fiction, and non-fiction have been recorded for radio and widely published in numerous journals, magazines and anthologies in New Zealand and overseas.

He is one of three poets included in the joint collection AUP New Poets 4(Auckland University Press, 2011).

Chris’s first full-length poetry collection, How to be Dead in a Year of Snakes, was published by Auckland University Press in September 2014. In 2016, Snakes was a finalist in the poetry category at the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards, where it received the Jessie Mackay Award for Best First Book of Poetry.

In 2018, Auckland University Press published his second collection HE’S SO MASC. The collection was critically acclaimed and was included in the New Zealand Herald‘s Best Books of 2018 and The Spinoff‘s 20 Best Poetry Books of 2018.

He and Emma Barnes co-edited Out Here: An anthology of Takatāpui and LGBTQIA+ writers from Aoteaora (Auckland University Press, 2021). This landmark book is the first major anthology of writing by queer Aotearoa writers.

Chris’ most recent collection, Super Model Minority, was published by Auckland University Press in March 2022.

A frequent panellist and performer at literary festivals throughout New Zealand, Chris has also appeared at international festivals, including the Cheltenham Literature Festival (UK), the Emerging Writers Festival (Melbourne, Australia), EnQueer (Sydney, Australia), the National Young Writers’ Festival (Newcastle, Australia), and the Queensland Poetry Festival (Brisbane, Australia).