Chris Tse in conversation with Sally McLennan
At the 2024 Marlborough Book Festival, the Poet Laureate talks about and reads from his poetry collections in which he explores questions of identity, including his Chinese heritage and queer identity, and addresses Aotearoa history. He also reflects on his time as Poet Laureate and his hopes for the power of poetry.
Chris Tse is the New Zealand Poet Laureate 2022-2025. His first collection, How to be Dead in a Year of Snakes (2014), won the Jessie Mackay Award for Best First Book of Poetry. The collection revisits the 1905 murder of Joe Kum Yung at the hands of the racist Lionel Terry. His second book, HE’S SO MASC, explores themes of identity, sexuality and pop culture. It received critical acclaim and was included in the New Zealand Herald‘s Best Books of 2018 and The Spinoff’s 20 Best Poetry Books of 2018.
His most recent collection of poetry, Super Model Minority (2022), was longlisted for the Mary and Peter Biggs Award for Poetry at the 2023 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards and was a finalist for the Gay Poetry Award at the 35th Lambda Literary Awards. With Emma Barnes, Chris co-edited Out Here: An Anthology of Takatāpui and LGBTQIA+ writers from Aotearoa (Auckland University Press, 2021). Chris is the editor of The Spinoff’s Friday Poem. Te Pouhuaki National Librarian Rachel Esson described Chris’s appointment as Poet Laureate as recognition of “a poet leading a generational and cultural shift in the reach and appreciation of poetry in Aotearoa”.
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Nic Low - Uprising, Walking the Southern Alps of New Zealand
Nic Low is a writer, editor, arts organiser, te reo student, and dad with whakapapa links to Ōraka-Aparima in Southland. His writing on wilderness, technology, and race has been widely published and anthologised. His first book Arms Race, a collection of speculative fictions was shortlisted for the Readings and Steele Rudd prizes and named New Zealand Listener and Australian Book Review book of the year. He is a contributing editor at New Zealand Geographic magazine with a focus on Māori perspectives and former Programme Director of the WORD Christchurch Festival.
Uprising, Walking the Southern Alps of New Zealand
Nic Low in conversation with Dr Peter Meihana
Armed with Ngāi Tahu’s traditional oral maps and modern satellite atlas, Nic crossed the Southern Alps more than a dozen times, trying to understand how his Ngāi Tahu forebears saw the land. He discusses his book with Dr Peter Meihana (Rangitāne, Ngāti Kuia, Ngāti Apa ki te Rā Tō, Ngāi Tahu). Part gripping adventure story and part meditation on history and place, Uprising recounts Nic’s alpine expeditions to unlock stories living in the land.
The Marlborough Book Festival is an annual readers and writers festival held in July in Marlborough, New Zealand. Listen to our podcasts to hear discussions with our featured writers, as they explain the challenges and the highlights of creating their various works and their lives as writers.
For more information, head to: https://www.marlboroughbookfest.co.nz/
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