2019
February 2019 - Chris Tse
Chris Tse is a poet based in Wellington whose work has been widely published in New Zealand and overseas. He is the author of two critically acclaimed collections of poetry published by Auckland University Press: How to be Dead in a Year of Snakes (winner of the Jessie Mackay Award for Best First Book of Poetry at the 2016 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards) and HE'S SO MASC. Chris is also an occasional food blogger and book reviewer.
https://christse.co.nz/
February 2019 - Mohamed Hassan
One-off event: Mohamed Hassan is an award-winning journalist and poet from Auckland, New Zealand. He is the winner of the 2015 NZ National Poetry Slam and New Zealand's first representative at the Individual World Poetry Slam in 2016. He has performed his work internationally, with his poetry videos featured on Button Poetry, SlamFind and The Wireless. His first collection of poetry 'A Felling of Things' was released in 2016. He currently resides in Istanbul.
https://www.facebook.com/Mohamedhassanpoetry/
March 2019 - Dietrich Soakai
Dietrich is of Tongan, Samoan, German, Irish, Scottish, English heritage. He fell in love with spoken word in 2011 of which he fell into his dream job as a Spoken word facilitator and poet. He was a member of the South Auckland Poets Collective. He is happily married to his wife Hanna Soakai and aspires to be a father one day.
April 2019 - Terisa Siagatonu
Terisa Siagatonu is an award-winning poet, teaching artist, mental health educator, and community leader born and rooted in the Bay Area. Her presence in the poetry world as a queer Samoan woman and activist has granted her opportunities to perform and speak in places ranging from the White House (during the Obama administration) to the UN Conference on Climate Change in Paris, France. The most memorable moment in her career was receiving President Obama’s Champion of Change Award in 2012 for her activism as a spoken word poet/organizer in her Pacific Islander community.
April 2019 - Ria Masae
Ria Masae's work has been in publications such as, Landfall, Ika, takahē and Manifesto Aotearoa. She won the 2015 ‘New Voices: Emerging Poets Competition’, and the 2016 ‘Cooney Insurance Short Story Competition’. She has poetry on the Mexican poetry website Circulo De Poesia, as well as the Best New Zealand Poem 2017 anthology. Last year, Ria became the ‘2018 Going West Poetry Slam’ champion. She is currently working on a poetry manuscript for publication.
May 2019 - Ken Arkind
Ken Arkind is a writer and educator living in Aotearoa. A US National Poetry Slam Champion, he has been performing and teaching internationally for almost two decades. He is the author of the poetry collection Coyotes, and currently works as a Poet and Youth Development worker for Action Education.
June 2019 - Alfred Lee
Writing follows Alfred around. By day, he's a copywriter. By night he's a poet. A spoken word artist for 10 years, he was one of the pioneers of the spoken word scene in his hometown of Mumbai, India. He was also the 2016 NZ National Slam Champion.
Alfred sees poetry as a way to encourage dialogue and he believes in shining a light on contemporary issues, one poem at a time.
July 2019 - Rose Northey
Rose Northey is an Auckland based poet, illustrator, mechanical engineer and middle child who craves constant attention. After being raised by amateur theatres, Rose discovered spoken word poetry in 2015 and instantly fell in love with its flexibility of expression and performance aspects. Her work has been showcased in arts festivals, theatres, engineering firms, bars, her living room, libraries, cafes, on top of public sculptures, and Auckland’s comedy club. She runs the group “What’s Happening Auckland Poetry?” which enables people to access all of Auckland’s many poetry events from one location. Rose's only known written review was "You are a one person circus, and I mean that affectionately.
August 2019 - Jordan Hamel
Jordan grew up in Timaru on a healthy diet of Catholicism and masculine emotional repression. He fell in love with words the day his high school English teacher read a James K. Baxter poem aloud to the class. When he’s onstage he feels 27 years of anxiety slip away into the accepting embrace of a crowd who spend every day fighting their own silent battles.
Jordan has performed at festivals across Aotearoa and has had his poetry published in various literary journals, but he wants to publish a book sometime in the near future so a tangible piece of his vanity will outlive him. He has performed at LitCrawl Wellington, and is a performer and organiser of Welcome to Nowhere festival. He spends his spare time writing about pop culture and interviewing musicians, angry that his parents never made him learn an instrument as a child.
September 2019 - Semira Davis
Semira Davis is from Wairarapa, Kaitaia, Tamaki Makaurau, Raumati and Porirua. She dabbles in many art forms and her poetry has appeared in journals such as Landfall, Takahe, and The Spinoff's the Friday Poem. In 2015 she was awarded "One-to-Watch" at the Auckland Poetry Slam Finals; in 2016 she read at the first LBGT+ writers festival (Same Same but Different); and in 2018 she won 2nd prize in the Poetry New Zealand poetry competition. This year she is a mentee in the New Zealand Society of Authors Mentorship programme, where she is working on her first collection of poetry.
October 2019 - Liv Hall and Carrie Rudzinski
Carrie Rudzinski ranked 4th in the World at the 2014 Women of the World Poetry Slam and has been featured in Bustle, the Huffington Post, and Teen Vogue. A published author, she has performed her work over the past 14 years in 6 countries and in almost all 50 of the United States. She recently won the Pussy Riot Award at the Auckland Fringe Festival and performed at the 10th annual TEDx Christchurch.
Olivia Hall ranked 3rd at the 2015 New Zealand National Poetry Slam after claiming the titles of Wellington’s 2015 Matariki Slam Champion and 2015 Capital Slam Champion. In 2018 she spent a year in New York City, winning a number of slams at the Bowery Poetry Cafe. Olivia now lives in London, where she recently completed a Masters in Gender at LSE.
November 2019 - Kate Spencer
Kate Spencer is an award-winning poet thanks to her solo show Squirt, which sold maybe five tickets in Australia but played to a full house in Hastings. Go figure. She's producer of the Wellington Feminist Poetry Club and Naked Girls Reading and considers the Fringe Bar her second home. She self-published two books this year and is working on her next Fringe show, The Bitchelorette.
December 2019 - Alayne Dick
Alayne Dick is a Wellington based performer and writer. She is a librarian by day, a poet by night and a big sulky human always. Alayne’s poems have been featured in Cordite Poetry Review, on RNZ and in the most recent edition of Sport. This year she has performed at CubaDupa, BATS Theatre and VERB Festival’s LitCrawl. She is very tall and is slowly becoming ok with that.
Chris Tse is a poet based in Wellington whose work has been widely published in New Zealand and overseas. He is the author of two critically acclaimed collections of poetry published by Auckland University Press: How to be Dead in a Year of Snakes (winner of the Jessie Mackay Award for Best First Book of Poetry at the 2016 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards) and HE'S SO MASC. Chris is also an occasional food blogger and book reviewer.
https://christse.co.nz/
February 2019 - Mohamed Hassan
One-off event: Mohamed Hassan is an award-winning journalist and poet from Auckland, New Zealand. He is the winner of the 2015 NZ National Poetry Slam and New Zealand's first representative at the Individual World Poetry Slam in 2016. He has performed his work internationally, with his poetry videos featured on Button Poetry, SlamFind and The Wireless. His first collection of poetry 'A Felling of Things' was released in 2016. He currently resides in Istanbul.
https://www.facebook.com/Mohamedhassanpoetry/
March 2019 - Dietrich Soakai
Dietrich is of Tongan, Samoan, German, Irish, Scottish, English heritage. He fell in love with spoken word in 2011 of which he fell into his dream job as a Spoken word facilitator and poet. He was a member of the South Auckland Poets Collective. He is happily married to his wife Hanna Soakai and aspires to be a father one day.
April 2019 - Terisa Siagatonu
Terisa Siagatonu is an award-winning poet, teaching artist, mental health educator, and community leader born and rooted in the Bay Area. Her presence in the poetry world as a queer Samoan woman and activist has granted her opportunities to perform and speak in places ranging from the White House (during the Obama administration) to the UN Conference on Climate Change in Paris, France. The most memorable moment in her career was receiving President Obama’s Champion of Change Award in 2012 for her activism as a spoken word poet/organizer in her Pacific Islander community.
April 2019 - Ria Masae
Ria Masae's work has been in publications such as, Landfall, Ika, takahē and Manifesto Aotearoa. She won the 2015 ‘New Voices: Emerging Poets Competition’, and the 2016 ‘Cooney Insurance Short Story Competition’. She has poetry on the Mexican poetry website Circulo De Poesia, as well as the Best New Zealand Poem 2017 anthology. Last year, Ria became the ‘2018 Going West Poetry Slam’ champion. She is currently working on a poetry manuscript for publication.
May 2019 - Ken Arkind
Ken Arkind is a writer and educator living in Aotearoa. A US National Poetry Slam Champion, he has been performing and teaching internationally for almost two decades. He is the author of the poetry collection Coyotes, and currently works as a Poet and Youth Development worker for Action Education.
June 2019 - Alfred Lee
Writing follows Alfred around. By day, he's a copywriter. By night he's a poet. A spoken word artist for 10 years, he was one of the pioneers of the spoken word scene in his hometown of Mumbai, India. He was also the 2016 NZ National Slam Champion.
Alfred sees poetry as a way to encourage dialogue and he believes in shining a light on contemporary issues, one poem at a time.
July 2019 - Rose Northey
Rose Northey is an Auckland based poet, illustrator, mechanical engineer and middle child who craves constant attention. After being raised by amateur theatres, Rose discovered spoken word poetry in 2015 and instantly fell in love with its flexibility of expression and performance aspects. Her work has been showcased in arts festivals, theatres, engineering firms, bars, her living room, libraries, cafes, on top of public sculptures, and Auckland’s comedy club. She runs the group “What’s Happening Auckland Poetry?” which enables people to access all of Auckland’s many poetry events from one location. Rose's only known written review was "You are a one person circus, and I mean that affectionately.
August 2019 - Jordan Hamel
Jordan grew up in Timaru on a healthy diet of Catholicism and masculine emotional repression. He fell in love with words the day his high school English teacher read a James K. Baxter poem aloud to the class. When he’s onstage he feels 27 years of anxiety slip away into the accepting embrace of a crowd who spend every day fighting their own silent battles.
Jordan has performed at festivals across Aotearoa and has had his poetry published in various literary journals, but he wants to publish a book sometime in the near future so a tangible piece of his vanity will outlive him. He has performed at LitCrawl Wellington, and is a performer and organiser of Welcome to Nowhere festival. He spends his spare time writing about pop culture and interviewing musicians, angry that his parents never made him learn an instrument as a child.
September 2019 - Semira Davis
Semira Davis is from Wairarapa, Kaitaia, Tamaki Makaurau, Raumati and Porirua. She dabbles in many art forms and her poetry has appeared in journals such as Landfall, Takahe, and The Spinoff's the Friday Poem. In 2015 she was awarded "One-to-Watch" at the Auckland Poetry Slam Finals; in 2016 she read at the first LBGT+ writers festival (Same Same but Different); and in 2018 she won 2nd prize in the Poetry New Zealand poetry competition. This year she is a mentee in the New Zealand Society of Authors Mentorship programme, where she is working on her first collection of poetry.
October 2019 - Liv Hall and Carrie Rudzinski
Carrie Rudzinski ranked 4th in the World at the 2014 Women of the World Poetry Slam and has been featured in Bustle, the Huffington Post, and Teen Vogue. A published author, she has performed her work over the past 14 years in 6 countries and in almost all 50 of the United States. She recently won the Pussy Riot Award at the Auckland Fringe Festival and performed at the 10th annual TEDx Christchurch.
Olivia Hall ranked 3rd at the 2015 New Zealand National Poetry Slam after claiming the titles of Wellington’s 2015 Matariki Slam Champion and 2015 Capital Slam Champion. In 2018 she spent a year in New York City, winning a number of slams at the Bowery Poetry Cafe. Olivia now lives in London, where she recently completed a Masters in Gender at LSE.
November 2019 - Kate Spencer
Kate Spencer is an award-winning poet thanks to her solo show Squirt, which sold maybe five tickets in Australia but played to a full house in Hastings. Go figure. She's producer of the Wellington Feminist Poetry Club and Naked Girls Reading and considers the Fringe Bar her second home. She self-published two books this year and is working on her next Fringe show, The Bitchelorette.
December 2019 - Alayne Dick
Alayne Dick is a Wellington based performer and writer. She is a librarian by day, a poet by night and a big sulky human always. Alayne’s poems have been featured in Cordite Poetry Review, on RNZ and in the most recent edition of Sport. This year she has performed at CubaDupa, BATS Theatre and VERB Festival’s LitCrawl. She is very tall and is slowly becoming ok with that.