INFO
| Name | Cadence Chung (she/her) |
| Born | 2003 |
| Country of Birth | Aotearoa |
| Place of Residence | Pōneke Wellington |
| Ethnicities | Chinese, Pākehā |
| Artform | Literature, Music, Opera |
| Decades Active | 2020s |
ABOUT
Cadence Chung is a poet, writer, classical vocalist and musician who often blends these different forms into her multidisciplinary work.
Born and raised in Te Whanganui-a-Tara, Chung was first published in Starling while attending Wellington High School and in 2020, when she was 17 years old, made waves when she wrote ‘Shadows / shades’. The poem responded to NZQA’s decision to include a poem written by Lionel Terry — a white supremacist who murdered Cantonese gold miner Joe Kum Yung in 1905 — as a primary source in an NCEA History exam. Speaking to Poetry Shelf, Chung said: “Terry’s poem was part of a source which included testimonials from people who had received treatment at Seacliff asylum, which I feel disregarded his actions as ‘madness’, and extended sympathy to him.”
Chung’s debut poetry collection anomalia was written during her last year of high school and published by Tender Press in April 2022. The chapbook possesses the aesthetic of a scientific journal and weaves imagery of insects and the natural world into poetry about otherness, beauty, youth, belonging, desire, queerness and human nature. “Her poems are opulent and glittery – all opals and twinkling taxidermy eyes,” wrote poet Rebecca Hawkes in The Spinoff. Hawkes continued:
But while this speaker is magnetically attracted to the trappings of beauty, the poetry always returns to a sense of outsiderness … the loneliness of the anomaly, gathering relics from strangers’ lives or peering into other people’s homes, murmuring i want to be in their lives / in their laughter / in their lit-up windows (from Home).
That same year, Chung co-founded Symposia Literary Magazine, a publication that focuses on the work of young emerging poets across Aotearoa. They released their first issue in March 2023.
Chung also produces and performs original music. In 2022, she presented her musical In Blind Faith at BATS Theatre (2022) — previously written and performed at Wellington High School (2021) — and has created song cycles inspired by Sappho (Mad Heart, Verb 2022), New Zealand poets Rebecca Hawkes and Pippi Jean (Cud-Chewing Country, Verb 2023) and Jackson McCarthy (Spoiled Fruit book launch, Verb 2023).
Chung is currently studying classical voice at the New Zealand School of Music — Te Kōkī. As a mezzo-soprano vocalist, Chung has performed with the Orpheus Choir and Wellington Comic Opera and is regularly engaged as a concert soloist.
LINKS
Key works / presentations
As a playwright:
2024 — Hector, BATS Theatre, 18–22 June 2024
As a poet:
2022 — anomalia (Tender Press)
As a writer and composer:
2023 — Cud-Chewing Country: NZ Poets and Composers in Concert (Verb 2023)
2023 — Three Spells (Verb 2023)
2022 — In Blind Faith (BATS Theatre)
2022 — Mad Heart (Verb 2022)
Key awards
2023 — FAME Emerging Practitioner Award
2023 — Wellington Regional Vocal Competitions Awards: Graham Gillespie Memorial Cup (for highest aggregate marks)
2023 — Out on the Shelves Rainbow Writing Competition (for three poems: Desire, Desio, and The Truth)
2021 — Katherine Mansfield Short Story Competition (Oxford)
2021 — Out on the Shelves Rainbow Writing Competition (the girls carve out their names with cigarettes in the parlour)
