Him Hymn is Challenger’s first book of poems. Publishing on November 25th, 2025 by Osmosis Press. Available soon via the Osmosis website and selected bookshops.
“Tamsyn Challenger’s H I M H Y M N is a striking debut—bold, intimate, and full of unexpected turns. Her poems move between tenderness and tension, exploring the body, art, and desire with sharp intelligence and dark humour. Challenger dismantles power and pleasure, turning language into both weapon and salve. This collection speaks to love’s violence and art’s necessity.”
- Peter Gizzi
“Any map of heartbreak can only be a version or representation of the territory, but this almost impossible task is also the soul of what poetry is. In Him Hymn we find a sensibility, an imagination, a voice, as real as any other world, urgently leveraging a dazzling spectrum of approaches to see what works, to see what breaks things open or describes them with the necessary emotional, cartographic accuracy. In Stein-like linguistic intensity Challenger gives us one of the most true maps I can imagine.”
- Luke Kennard
“Him Hymn gives shape to the anger and obsession that come with impossible love. These poems are confronting, gorgeous and wild. When you read them, you’ll hear songs. Tamsyn Challenger knows exactly to which rhythm a broken heart beats.”
- Nadia de Vries