Everyone Is Everyone Except You

Description

Jordan Hamel is falling in and out of love with his own mediocrity. Caught between the instinct to build a franchise of rock hard abs, and succumb to death among the kitchen appliances of Briscoes, Jordan is the star of his own demise. He’s on the brink of  becoming the world’s worst life coach, or the plot twist to a bygone reality show.But absurd delusions of grandeur reveal a more unsettling feeling—the pointlessness of being alive. In the face of existential dread, what is the purpose of a life if not for entertainment value?Everyone is Everyone Except You is the honest and hilarious debut from one of Aotearoa’s most charismatic poets. Alternately comical and insightful, Jordan Hamel reinvents the time-honoured portrait-of-the-artist for a millennial sensibility.

Reviews

Jams the machinery of algorithmic life,  makes toxic masculinity its sextoy and  scripture its Netflix re-runs. Hamel is  the captain of a new breed with deadly  mouths, slick-as-hell footwork and  heavyweight hearts. Jesus doesn't love  him but I do. – Tracey Slaughter

Both emotionally-wrong footed and  diabolically sincere, a brilliant &  compulsive read.  – Hera Lindsay Bird 

  Completely batshit, whip smart and  spit-out-your-Tui or VB crack up…..  but mostly it’s full of heart and all  the trouble the heart demands.  – Tayi Tibble

Author description

Jordan Hamel (he/him/his) is a Pōneke-based writer, poet and performer. He was the 2018 New Zealand Poetry Slam champion and represented NZ at the World Poetry Slam Champs in 2019. He is the co-editor of Stasis Journal and co-editor of a forthcoming climate change poetry anthology from Auckland University Press. He is a 2021 Michael King Writer-in-Residence and recently placed third in the 2021 Sargeson Prize judged by Patricia Grace. He has recently had words published in The Spinoff, The Pantograph Punch, Newsroom, NZ Poetry Shelf, Landfall, Turbine | Kapohau and elsewhere.