Q&A: Chris Tse
A new collection by local cool person/poet Chris Tse is always cause for celebration. Put on your most sparkly blazer and check out Chris’s answers to our quick Q&A in honour of his third collection, Super Model Minority.
1. How are you and what have you been up to lately?
Kia ora! It feels like everything was dialled up to 10 straight out of the summer break both at my day job and with my writing projects. And now we’re all in a strange flux with Omicron, protestors and event cancellations. I’ve distracted myself with a lot of gardening and Taskmaster.
2. If you were working in a bookshop, how would you hand-sell your book to customers? What would you say to convince them to buy and read it?
I’d ask them if they’re ready for some super sexy and confrontational poetry about racism and George Michael!
3. What books (or other art/media) influenced you while writing this book, or generally in your life?
I wanted to respond to events over the last four years – like the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, the rise of anti-Asian sentiment during the pandemic, and the discourse around racism in Aotearoa following the mosque shootings. This in turn prompted me to write about past experiences and inner conflicts of my own that I’ve never felt comfortable putting into words. I drew inspiration and comfort from the works of Nina Mingya Powles, Sam Duckor-Jones, Chen Chen, Ocean Vuong, Mary Jean Chan and Danez Smith during this time. Quite a few visual artists pop up in this book, which has poems inspired by Guy Ngan, Mark Rothko and Grant Lingard, among others. I think these particular poems evolved from the initial idea for the book, which was to base it on the meanings ascribed to the colours of the pride flag and explore how symbols like the flag are used to represent community or belonging.
4. What good books have you read lately?
I’ve been doing a lot of preparatory reading for events that I’ve been involved with, so my reading pile has included Samuel Te Kani’s Please, Call Me Jesus, which is shocking in the best way possible; Omar Sakr’s beautiful debut novel Son of Sin; and Rebecca K. Reilly’s Greta and Valdin, which is a very good time and had me chuckling a lot. And of course there’s been quite a few poetry collections: Tim Gregc’s All Tito’s Children and Nicole Titihuia Hawkins’ Whai are two excellent recent releases.
Buy Super Model Minority (Auckland University Press NZ), $25
