Jordan Hamel – Head Judge Q&A (Poetry 2024)
Award-winning poet and performer Jordan Hamel is the head judge for the New Writers Poetry Competition 2024 – and he won our 2023 competition! We wanted to find out about his favourite poets, where he finds inspiration for his poems and what it’s like to cheat death in a nightclub bathroom.
About our Head Judge – Jordan Hamel

Jordan Hamel is an Aotearoa New Zealand writer and performer. He is currently an MFA candidate at the University of Michigan on a Fulbright Scholarship. His debut poetry collection Everyone is Everyone Except You, was published in New Zealand by Dead Bird Books in 2022 and will be published by Broken Sleep Books in the UK on 31st July 2024.
Jordan won the inaugural New Writers Poetry Competition in 2023 with his poem How to cheat death in a nightclub bathroom.
He is also the co-editor of No Other Place to Stand, an anthology of NZ and Pacific climate change poetry from Auckland University Press (2022). and was the winner of the 2023 Sonora Review Poetry Competition, judged by Maggie Smith. Recent work can be found or is forthcoming in POETRY, Sonora Review, Gulf Coast, and Best NZ Poems 2022.
Jordan Hamel Q&A
Firstly, thank you for agreeing to be the Head Judge for the New Writers Poetry Competition 2024. How did it feel when you found out you’d been selected as the winner of the 2023 competition?
My pleasure! I’m so excited to read everyone’s wonderful work. I was, of course, elated when I found out I won last year. At the time I was staying at a cabin in rural Michigan with a friend. I think I ran around the cabin screaming, then quickly cooled myself off with a swim in the lake and a beer or two.
Your winning poem, How to cheat death in a nightclub bathroom, had such vivid specificity that really stood out to our previous Head Judge (Andy Craven-Griffiths), and suggested (at least a certain level of) autobiography. When writing poetry, how much do you rely on personal experience?
That was very kind of Andy to say! I think all poets rely on personal experience directly or indirectly in their work. I know that’s kind of a broad sweeping statement, but I believe it. As for me, it varies from poem to poem of course, but usually there’s some incident or feeling or dynamic in my personal life I start with and then see how I can twist it to the point where it gets murky and fractured in interesting ways.
You were crowned the 2018 New Zealand Poetry Slam champion and competed at the World Poetry Slam Championships in San Diego the following year. How much of a buzz do you get when performing your poems to a live audience?
So much buzz! I sort of just fell into slam poetry because I was in a quarter-life crisis and forcing myself to step outside my comfort zone. But once I started performing I definitely fell in love with the crowd and the level of explicit interaction and exchange that occurs between a poet and the audience in those spaces. It’s not something I do as much these days and I definitely miss it (or maybe I just constantly crave attention).
Your debut poetry collection Everyone is Everyone Except You was released in Aotearoa New Zealand in 2022 but is set for its UK release on 31st July 2024 (through Broken Sleep Books). How did it feel to have your first collection published?

It was incredibly surreal. Something I had wanted before I even really comprehended what it meant. Holding a book with my name on it for the first time is a feeling I’ll never forget. At the same time it was equally terrifying. It’s no longer yours when it’s out in the world. It’s a thing unto itself, stagnant, concrete, there to be read and judged by anyone and everyone, yikes! But for the most part it just felt like a relief, like the summation of a lot of work and luck and all the people who cared enough about it to help bring it into existence.
You’ve been studying a Creative Writing MFA at the University of Michigan. In what ways has the course helped you develop as a poet? And what is more nervewracking, performing your poems at a poetry slam or bringing them to workshops for your peers to pick them apart?
I’ve loved my MFA! I know a lot of people have mixed experiences and I realise that I’m incredibly lucky to be in a funded program, but overall I would say it’s fundamentally changed and improved how I read or write. Sure, like any MFA there’s been no shortage of scandal, toxic literary sociopaths and forbidden romances, but on the whole I’m just grateful I got to spend two years reading, writing and teaching full time.
As for what’s more nerve-wracking? That will depend from person to person. A lot of people in the MFA have never read their work in public before and the thought of it makes them want to shit themselves. But for me, workshops will always be more nerve-wracking, there’s nowhere to hide, its just your words, on a plate, and a bunch of your peers rubbing their cutlery together.
When you write a new poem, how many times might you revise it before you know it’s finished, indeed do you ever know when a poem is finished or is there always the temptation to return to it and tweak a line or a word?
I never know. Anyone who says they know when a poem is finished is a liar.
Despite often tackling serious, emotive themes, humour plays a big part in most of the poems of yours I’ve read/watched/listened to. How easy do you find it to weave humour into your poems and do audiences ever laugh at the bits that weren’t supposed to be funny (and not at the bits that were)?
Balancing humour and other elements in my poetry is a tightrope that I am more often than not falling off, but it’s fun for me to keep trying and on the rare occasion it works I feel very smug and satisfied! Poetry doesn’t need comedy in it but I see it as an important tool in the toolbox for someone like me who is inclined towards wanting to make people laugh on the page and in real life. On stage, I don’t care if people laugh at the wrong bits, I care if they don’t laugh at all! That is true hell.
As well as writing and performing your poetry, you’ve also run many workshops and edited various publications, including co-editing an anthology of NZ and Pacific climate change poetry, No Other Place to Stand. How important do you think poetry (and the arts in general) is to help open people’s eyes to the most serious issues facing humanity?
I think the arts are deeply important to opening people’s eyes to all types of issues – personal, political, scientific, societal. Art is a medium of communication. I was lucky enough to talk to the NZ Climate Change Commissioner a lot during the editing of NOPTS and he really emphasised the importance of artforms as means of science communication. There are a lot of writers working in this space, particularly Indigenous and Pacific writers, and it was so cool to get to showcase some of them in the anthology
In a podcast interview with (NZ author) Pip Adam in 2022, you suggested there isn’t space for writers to focus exclusively on their writing in modern society (without the need for another job). Do you see any hope of this changing or are things getting tougher for those hoping to make a living from creative writing?
Wow, you really did your research! I forgot I said that. Honestly, I feel even more pessimistic now than I did back then. I can only really speak to New Zealand (and a little bit to America), but back home we have a new conservative government in power and as you’ve probably guessed, funding for the Arts is being slashed left, right and centre. Funny how the arts are always the scapegoat, it’s never the armed forces or corporate subsidies. The whole idea of public arts funding and investment is broken and neoliberal and will only continue unless we burn it all down, I’m going to stop ranting now before it’s too late.
Can you recommend any contemporary poets you love and who our readers should seek out?
Oh so many! I won’t list them all because we’ll be here all day. But some of the people I’ve been reading and loving recently are: Natalie Shapero, Richi Hoffman, Leah Dodd, Leslie Sainz, Bryan Gyamfi, Jenny Molberg, Chessy Normile, Joe Carrick-Varty, Maia Elsner. I should stop there or I’ll go on forever.
What’s your first memory of reading – or being read – a poem? Which were the first poets or poems that first inspired you to write poetry?
My first time reading in public was at a friend’s music festival in a NZ forest. It was nothing short of idyllic. I vomited from nerves beforehand. But it was a real sliding doors moment for me, and I got to read with one of my literary heroes Hera Lindsay Bird, I’ll never forget it.
Are there any particular styles or themes you are eager to find in the poems in this competition or indeed any that might turn you off?
This is a great question. Honestly no! A year ago I would have said no sonnets, but now I’m a convert. A part of me wants to say no rhyming ballads or no concrete poetry or several other forms I am not usually drawn to. But honestly, I’m open to anything and everything as long as it’s authentic to you and it makes me gasp. I JUST WANT TO FEEL SOMETHING DAMMIT.
Finally, can you tell us anything about the project(s) you’re working on at present?
I’m currently working on my second manuscript! I think I’m close to a first draft. After that I would love to find a US publisher since I’m living here currently. We’ll see how that goes.