Aotearoa Poetry Theatre - APT

Announcing APT Playshops

SCHOOL'S OUT in a few short weeks! And APT Poetry Theatre Youth Playshops will be launched in Ōtautahi Christchurch, featuring 20 sessions during the Term Three, 2025 school holidays.

The playshops are designed for young people 8-12 years and will be facilitated by none other than Greg O'Connell, APT Creative Director & Tutor.

For up-to-date information follow this page. Or email [email protected]

SCHOOL'S OUT in a few short weeks! And APT Poetry Theatre Youth Playshops will be launched in Ōtautahi Christchurch, featuring 20 sessions during the Term Three, 2025 school holidays.

The playshops are designed for young people 8-12 years and will be facilitated by none other than Greg O'Connell, APT Creative Director & Tutor.

For up-to-date information follow this page. Or email [email protected]

Greg O'Connell
it's complexity

‘If I had to express in one word what makes their (creatives’) personalities different from others, it's complexity. They (Creatives) show tendencies of thought and action that in most people are segregated. They contain contradictory extremes; instead of being an ‘individual’, each of them is a ‘multitude’. - MIHALY CSIKSZENTMIHALYI

as though a seat
had been saved
for one enslaved
to a false apprehension
his words cut
the tension of years,
decades of repressed
tears, fearing i had
some syndrome, some
condition, which erudition
would only confirm;
instead ‘the father
of flow’ goes inside
my head and shows
my brain is networking,
each synapse a creative
leap. yes, no doubt
you’ll defend your
right to be defined
as an individual;
and i don't wish
to sound dismissive
or exude rude
but, dude -
i’m a multitude.

Greg O'Connell
POETRY SHOW 2025

The kids are filing into view,
As though migrating lines of young
Herd animals; their fun unsung.
My poem gig is something new.

Who is this guy? I let them think.
Is he a dork? Or is he cool?
Is ours the only crazy school
To let him in the gate? That's stink!

But then I grab them by the ears.
I shake them up, I make them laugh.
They bounce with me along a path
Of comic verse: poetic peers.

APT buildings (lol). Okay, of course they don't belong to Aotearoa Poetry Theatre - APT in any literal sense. But they beckon! As Cantabs, we're so proud of both. Can't wait for some collabs.