Some final words

If I had to pick just one word to sum up my term as Poet Laureate, it would be: community. Everything that I’ve done or experienced in the role over the past three years has been possible because of people who see the power of poetry to bring people together – whether it’s in a creative writing workshop for students or including a poetry reading on the line-up of a musical festival.

Poetry is written from a poet’s individual perspective and experience, but once their poems are released into the world, in print or from a stage, they take on a life of their own. I’ve seen the spark in people’s eyes when a poem connects with them or they experience poetry in a way that changes their perceptions of what’s ‘allowed’. Whether that spark is a moment of delight or recognition, it’s the unmistakable power of words and storytelling to help us to make sense of ourselves and the world.

We’re so lucky to have a thriving poetry scene in Aotearoa. Visit one of our independent bookshops and you’ll see shelves and tables bulging under the weight of new poetry releases. There are regular open mics, slams and readings in many towns and cities, and plenty of places to find poetry online and in print. Read NZ’s 2025 National Reading Survey found that 32% of adults in Aotearoa have read a poetry book all or part way through in the past 12 months, a significant increase from 25% in 2021. Ka rawe!

However, we can’t take any of this for granted. It’s been a tough time for artists and creatives: funding is scarce, venues are shutting down and audiences are understandably being more cautious with where and how they spend their money. There’s also A.I.’s impact on the creative sectors, which has already highlighted concerns with copyright and ethics. Despite these challenges, none of this diminishes the value of the arts and how they contribute to health and well-being.

It’s been a privilege to travel around Aotearoa and the world sharing my work, connecting with audiences, and promoting the incredible poets and poetry we have in this country. Every conversation, interaction and event has changed my own ideas about poetry and reenergised my love for it.

Although my focus has been on Aotearoa’s poets and poetry, I’ve also met many international poets during my term. I’ve shared stages with people whose work I’ve admired for years, like UK Poet Laureate Simon Armitage, Warsan Shire, Sandra Cisnero and Nicholas Wong, as well as poets previously unknown to me like Andre Bagoo, Babs Gons, Daryl Lim Wei Jie, Felipe Franco Munhoz, Phodiso Modirwa, Kim Moore and Joanna Yang.

Ōrongohau | Best New Zealand Poems 2023 event, Te Papa, August 2024.
Pictured left to right are: Cadence Chung, Jackson McCarthy, Hannah Mettner,
Leah Dodd, Sinead Overbye, Arihia Latham, Chris Tse, Emma Shi,
Isla Huia, harold coutts and Tracey Slaughter

It’s impossible to thank everyone who has supported me during my term, but I would like to mention a few people: Rachel Esson and the team at the National Library for welcoming me as part of their whānau; Peter Ireland for his sage advice and care; Zoe Roland, Reuben Love, David Vieco and everyone who has assisted with the many events we’ve put on; Phantom Billstickers; Jacob Scott; Matahiwi Marae; Te Mata Estate; and Aotearoa’s incredible independent book stores.

I also want to thank the many festivals, event organisers and organisations who have invited me to perform or speak. Thank you for your hospitality and for creating spaces for poets to shine.

To the poets I met on my travels – it’s been a joy to read your work and perform alongside you, seeing first hand the ways you bring your stories and truths into the light.

Finally, I wouldn’t have made it through the past three years without the love and support of my parents, family, friends and colleagues. Thank you for putting up with my absences and for making sure I took time out to recharge.

It’s been an honour to be New Zealand’s Poet Laureate. Nothing could’ve prepared me for the incredible adventures I’ve had over the past three years. I wish whoever steps into the role all the best – I can’t wait to see all the amazing things they’ll do during their term.

Keep writing, keep reading and keep sharing. Poetry can be found everywhere you look, especially where you least expect it. And don’t forget to visit the National Poetry Day website to see what’s happening near you this week.

Until we meet again... mā te wā.

Audience at the ‘(Re)geneartion next: The Poet Laureate steps down’ event. Photo by Chris Tse. 

Launching ‘Still Is’

On Friday 21 June, the National Library hosted the launch of former Poet Laureate Vincent O’Sullivan’s last poetry collection Still Is, published less than two months after he passed away in April.

Book cover of Still Is (Te Herenga Waka University Press, 2024).

The evening was a heartwarming celebration of Vincent’s life and career, with contributions from Vincent’s family and those who knew him well. Te Herenga Waka University Press’ Fergus Barrowman shared lively anecdotes that highlighted Vincent’s wit and talent, shedding light on what it was like to work closely with him for 40 years.

I was honoured to be asked to read at the launch alongside former Laureates Bill Manhire and Jenny Bornholdt, and poets Gregory O’Brien and Diana Bridge who all spoke movingly about their friendships with Vincent. We each read a poem from Still Is as well as one of our own poems to complement Vincent’s. I wrote a new poem for the occasion in response to Vincent’s poem ‘The Trouble With Windows’.

Subtitles missing

Lately I have become untethered from stillness.
Here, in my little brown house caught in the shadow
of a neighbouring tower block, every room
rattles my patience. The tui and the sparrows
frolick at my kitchen window. I have never been
able to read their intent. I watch my neighbours
watch the day go by, each window a screen
of unquiet resolution. I feel as if we are
collectively haunted by some outdated expression
of freedom because the day is a dream we dream
when we have no other way to take flight.
On this side of the glass the view is idyllic
and industrious: every car on the motorway
is a passing vignette and every container ship
works against silken blue. Across the harbour,
the Eastern ranges remain staunch in their place.
Time collects on the wind, unbothered, while
my attention divides and scatters itself again
and again in search of an elusive synchronicity.
My imagination’s fieldnotes are entirely made up
of subtitles for every window I look into or
out of. Nearly all of them are questions, like
‘How can we prove what never occurred?’
and ‘What waits for us on the other side?’.
Like daybreak, the tui and the sparrows reappear.
They ask for so little. A lesson, surely, given
we are prone to asking for what must be earned.

— Chris Tse

Chris at the Still Is book launch and reading. Image credit Marcelo Duque Cesar.

Ōrongohau | Best New Zealand Poems 2023 selected by Chris Tse

Since 2001 the International Institute of Modern Letters has been home to Ōrongohau | Best New Zealand Poems. There is a guest editor for each selection and in 2023, this was our Poet Laureate, Chris Tse. Our Poets Laureate feature prominently in editors to date and Chris joined Laureate alumni Elizabeth Smither, Ian Wedde, Vincent O’Sullivan, Jenny Bornholdt, Selina Tusitala Marsh, and David Eggleton in accepting this rewarding if daunting assignment.

Of the 25 poems (from nearly 4000!) to make the cut, Chris observed:

‘Individually, these 25 poems are tender, aggressive, funny, angry, and contemplative. Collectively, they emphasise the power of poetry to communicate with an open heart without fear of retribution. These are the poems that surprised and delighted me the most, that made me pause to sit in my own discomfort or revel in another poet’s joy. Above all, they’re the poems I thought other people need to read.’

To read Chris’s full introduction and to read (and hear some of) the poems, and to spend time looking back down the years of New Zealand poetry in this century, have a look at the Best New Zealand poems website.

Thank you, Chris, a job well done!

Peter Ireland
for the National Library

Half-time

It was a scorching day in Washington DC in late July, but rather than seeking shelter from the heat and humidity in one of the city’s many air-conditioned museums, I found myself in a school gymnasium thrumming with the laughter of 40 kids and adults chasing a soccer ball across the polished floor. The kids were ‘poet-athletes’ taking part in a summer camp programme with DC SCORES, a not-for-profit organisation that uses soccer and poetry to ‘give kids the confidence and skills to succeed on the playing field, in the classroom, and in life’. My indoor soccer days were far behind me, so I was there in my capacity as Aotearoa’s Poet Laureate.

I was in Washington DC as a member of Slow Currents, a cohort of Asian diaspora writers from Aotearoa and Australia. In 2022, we participated in online workshops with Asian American writers, including Pulitzer Prize winners Viet Thanh Nguyen and Hua Hsu, and acclaimed Palestinian American poet George Abraham. The main purpose of our trip to DC was a two-week residency to work on our individual projects and to meet with key people in the Asian American writing community to share knowledge and ideas about how we can empower and create opportunities for our own communities. We also lined up some last-minute events while we were in town, including performances at the famous Busboys & Poets, and the first-ever open mic at the Kennedy Centre. (The Asian American Literature Festival, which we were due to participate in, was abruptly cancelled in the week leading up to us arriving in the States. To date, the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center has failed to give organisers and participants a transparent reason for the cancellation. There’s murmurs that the programme’s trans and non-binary content spooked the Sminthsonian’s conservative stakeholders.)

The culture galleries at the National Museum of African
 American History & Culture, Washington D.C. Photo by Chris Tse. 

Before leaving a typical Wellington winter for summer in Washington DC, I reached out to the New Zealand Embassy to see whether there might be opportunities for me to partner with them for an event while I was in DC. The timing couldn’t have been better—the Embassy had been working with DC SCORES to plan a day to celebrate the FIFA Women’s World Cup being hosted in Aoteaora and Australia.

Despite my initial scepticism about soccer and poetry being natural bedfellows, I was instantly won over by the kids’ enthusiasm for both. After sharing some of my poems, I fielded some creative and incisive questions from the kids. What I love about moments like this is that it strengthens my own relationship to poetry, and reminds me how powerful it can be to connect with others through the power of storytelling and poetry. As much as the laureateship has been about raising my own profile as a poet and promoting poetry in general, it’s also taught me a lot about myself and how the role of Poet Laureate can act as an intermediary — something like a poetry matchmaker, if you will.

Today is National Poetry Day, which means I’m now halfway through my two-year term. Over the past year, I’ve met and spoken with thousands of people of all ages and backgrounds, from running writing workshops in schools to meeting with a public sector organisation’s pan-Asian staff network. Each of these engagements has been a chance to share my love of poetry and gauge people’s feelings about what is often considered an impenetrable and inaccessible art form.

I know some have had bad experiences with poetry because of how it was taught at school, but my appeal to them is to let that go — start afresh and embrace poetry that speaks to them and their interests. As an artform, poetry is as varied as music or film—there truly is something out there for everyone, from Chaucer to spoken word. I’m heartened when teenagers tell me they’re reading contemporary New Zealand poets (by choice!) or when a retired grandmother makes their debut at an open mic. All of this reinforces to me that poetry can be for everyone — it’s about finding a way into it that resonates with them.

I’d be lying if I said the past year hasn’t been hectic — my entire life has shifted to put poetry front and centre. It’s been chaotic in the best way and surprising too (for starters, I never imagined I’d see my face plastered on the backs of buses). Invitations to speak and perform have come from as far as Invercargill and Leeds in the U.K., which is where I’ll be next month for a festival. As I told the kids at DC SCORES, I knew I’d never represent Aotearoa in sport, but I’m immensely proud to represent our country and its phenomenal poets on a global stage.

Chris Tse reads to poet-athletes at DC SCORE's summer school programme in Washington D.C., July 2023.

If there’s one thing I want to achieve before my term is over, it’s to shift perceptions about poetry being ‘difficult’ to help people find new ways into enjoying it. We’re surrounded by poetry, from the way shadows scatter themselves on the pavement to someone being moved to speak out about injustice.

I’ve no doubt that I have another busy year filled with poetry ahead of me, and I can’t wait to share it with Aotearoa and the world. 

Chris would like to thank the New Zealand Embassy in Washington DC for arranging his visit to DC SCORES, and Creative New Zealand for its support of the Slow Currents residency.

Number 13 — Inauguration weekend poem

I’m trying to get into the habit of writing new poems to read at each event I participate in as the Poet Laureate, and I knew that for my inauguration weekend, I wanted to read something that acknowledged the Poets Laureate who have come before me.

I decided to write an acrostic using the surnames of the 12 previous Laureates. I’ve found that the acrostic form has forced me to write more linearly than I usually do. Thus each line revealed itself one by one over a couple of months as I chipped away at the poem. The final result is part homage and part manifesto, a testament to the power of poetry to change hearts and minds.

Number 13

Must be the way a poem kickstarts a world into being that

alters how time leans into itself. The rise and fall of oceans

never felt so slow or sticky on your skin, salt crusting between

heartbeats. The delicious moon—all-seeing and all-knowing—

inches across the night sky while sad songs crackle on the

radio. Must be fire and flood swooping in to play their part when

everything is bent beyond recognition. Pray for the good old days.

The before times. The once and once more. We have a habit of

U-Turning when faced with not liking where we’re heading. Oh

wicked, stubborn fate—who’s to say that we can outpace the

hardest of truths? That we are fallible. That we are fools for

attempting to chart our own lives. Poets will ensure that these

revelations are broken to us in the kindest way, like a parent

easing their child into a bedtime ritual. The mind wanders,

skips over crucial details when recalling a memory

made at our most vulnerable to scarring. Are those made

in usual circumstances worth holding in the eternal vault?

Take dreams as an example: there is nothing unusual or

humbling about sleep. Most dreams aren’t memories worth

entertaining. And yet, I have a recurring dream in which

RuPaul asks, ‘What would you say to 10-year-old Christopher?’.

This is the trope I hate the most: tricking my inner child to

unpack intergenerational trauma or make peace with what

returns to sting me when I let down my guard. If I only had

nerve to excoriate the judges for this scripted farce, but I can’t

escape expectation. I’ve been thinking about legacy and

royalty—arrangements designed to make us feel like we

belong to some powerful chain. Link by link we forge

ornamental pathways backwards and forwards, left and

right—words whistling in every direction in search of

new ears to fall upon. A poem is a key, is a map, is a

hidden place filled with the answers to questions you

only ever ask yourself when you’re alone. There’s nothing

lost between a poem and its reader—an open mind and

derring-do will take you far if you hand yourself over to

the invisible strings of each melodious line. If gravity were to

loosen its grip you might find yourself melting into the

eventide, echoes of other worlds ushering you onwards,

grief-stricken by what has been, or empowered by what is

granted a spotlight in your fantasies. I still long for utopia

or at the very least a future where we no longer need to

teach children how to hide from mass shooters stalking

their school corridors. I have excavated and polished all

my fears and frustrations to display in the world’s most

complicated museum exhibition. No amount of hurt can

quieten my overachiever Asian gene or deny my status as an

unreasonable artist with many obsessions to nurture until

everything is about race or gender or queerness. I want an

easy life too—hands free to caress the world in its velvets,

not to obsess or fret about the sharp edges that catch my

wild tongue. A pattern must be broken. A heavy heart needs

emptying to make room for courage. So I listen to Robyn’s

‘Dancing On My Own’ for the thousandth time to feel something

deeply—to unearth a memory loaded with the most powerful

emotion that will transform my simple words into a paean to

our shared joy. In the future, our desires will be soundtracked by

sadbangers—we will cry and let our cathartic tears crystallise

under our feet as we dance ourselves towards the blinding

light of better days. We will sing; we will lift our arms and

levitate, enraptured by the possibility that poetry holds.

If this is the path, if this is the way forward, let all our

voices be bold. Hear me: I am the Poet Laureate and I

approve this message! Now is the time for poetry to

nurse our crushes until we all die of embarrassment. I’ll

stand tall, facing the past, and instruct everyone to keep

tipping the scales in our favour. Assume the position—

ease our bodies against the tide that roars at us, “No

Admission”. I believe in our strength; I believe in self-

deprecation and letting poetry ruin every party it crashes.

Must be the page turning or the world tipping on its

axis, tradition glazed with the woozy afterglow of poets

reciting verse to manifest rebirth, a murmuration of

starlings filling the vast attics of our futures. If there’s

harmony there must be a chorus, voices matched and

etched into the walls we are learning to scale with ease.

Give me neither poverty nor riches; give me myself again.

Give me love and give me hope; give me myself again.

Line by line and brick by brick, build something that will

equip us to change the world. I am sentimental for a 

time that does not yet exist but that I know is somewhere

out there—a half-beginning, a half-sense of something

not entirely out of reach. Must be the way a poem can

tell you where to stand to see every crack or where to

start a fire to light the way for others. Describe what you

expect to see on the other side. Tell us how you want to feel.

— Chris Tse

Chris Tse (the 13th Poet Laureate) holding his tokotoko carved by Jacob Scott.
Photo by Rebecca McMillan Photography. All rights reserved. 

Welcome to Chris Tse our new Poet Laureate

The National Library is delighted to celebrate National Poetry Day by announcing Chris Tse of Wellington as the New Zealand Poet Laureate for 2022-2024.

Te Pouhuaki National Librarian Rachel Esson described Chris’s appointment as recognition of “a poet leading a generational and cultural shift in the reach and appreciation of poetry in Aotearoa.”

Fellow poet Freya Daly Sadgrove says Chris “will unite and embolden the full breadth of Aotearoa’s poetry community as well as entice new audiences with his innovation. He’s a glam-rock poetry superstar with a big, gorgeous heart and he will raise the profile of Aotearoa poetry right now like no one else.”

Self-portrait Chris Tse. Photo provided. 

For Tse, his appointment was a thrill and an honour.

“The number 13 is a lucky number in my family, so it feels very auspicious to be named the 13th New Zealand Poet Laureate.

“Stepping into this role as a queer, Asian writer is an incredible and life-changing opportunity. I’m thrilled and honoured to be following in the footsteps of some of our literary greats.

“New Zealand’s poetry scene is thrumming with diverse and innovative voices on both the page and the stage, and I can’t wait to use my tenure as Poet Laureate to help people discover the riches of this scene.”

Congratulations Chris we look forward to hearing more from you.

Why Hollywood won’t cast poets in films anymore

1. There are public reasons and there are private reasons.

2. The public reasons are toothless exaggerations

3. In private, we recount the times we’ve been made to feel damaged.

4. The night writes its power ballads behind closed doors.

5. We have dressed our wounds with the sins of our tormentors.

6. When we were happy, we filled our suitcases with fresh bread.

7. Now that we are filled with rage we choke our duck ponds with dry crusts.

8. There was a time when the colour of a nightclub brawl did not exist.

9. Nowadays, a bookstore drive-by shooting no longer elicits social media outrage.

10. We must acknowledge that there are no more wars left to cry over.

11. Except for the wars we wage against ourselves, which we refuse to acknowledge.

12. We carved our names into every building to remind ourselves never to return.

13. You can dance for a destination, but you will never get there in one piece.

14. Careers based on public humiliation are no longer worth curating.

15. At no point have we accepted responsibility for casting the first stone.

16. If it’s all lies, we must pretend not to notice.

17. If it’s all truth, we must pretend not to care.

18. Either way, it’s meant to hurt.

19. It’s meant to make you want to leave your husband for a tax accountant.

20. It’s the way we step out of a burning theatre as if nothing’s wrong.

21. As if the smoke in our eyes is a lover’s smile caught in sunlight.

22. An uncontrollable fire is perfectly fine, given the state of the world.

23. Then why do I feel so angry?

24. Are you angry?

25. I’m angry.

— Chris Tse

Poster announcing Chris Tse as the new Poet Laureate.
Thank you to Phantom Billstickers for the poster.