Chris is a poet and editor based in Te Whanganui-a-Tara | Wellington. He is the author of three poetry collections published by Auckland University Press: How to be Dead in a Year of Snakes (winner of the 2016 Jessie Mackay Award for Best First Book of Poetry), HE’S SO MASC, and Super Model Minority (a finalist for the 2023 Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry and longlisted at the 2023 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards). He and Emma Barnes edited Out Here: An Anthology of Takatāpui and LGBTQIA+ Writers from Aotearoa.
In 2022, Chris was named New Zealand’s 13th Poet Laureate. He completed his term in August 2025. Chris was a 2024 fellow of the University of Iowa’s International Writing Program Fall Residency and a 2025 Nederlands Letterenfonds writer in residence. He will be using his time at the Michael King Writers Centre to finish his next collection of poetry.