Rapture: An Anthology of Performance Poetry from Aotearoa New Zealand

From the South Auckland Poets Collective to regional writers festivals, at poetry slams and open mic nights, in theatre works like Show Ponies and Wild Dogs Under My Skirt, performance poetry has taken off in Aotearoa. In this anthology, ninety performance poets, rappers, spoken-word artists, slam poets, theatre makers, genre blenders and storytellers come together to celebrate the diverse voices and communities within Aotearoa - including Ben Brown and Mohamed Hassan, Grace Iwashita-Taylor and Tusiata Avia, Nathan Joe and Dominic Hoey, Freya Daly Sadgrove, David Eggleton and Selina Tusitala Marsh. Rapture is a parallel narrative about contemporary poetry in Aotearoa - one that doesn’t just sit on the page, but leaps from it.

Carrie Rudzinski has performed her work over the past 17 years in six countries and has been featured in Bustle, HuffPost and Teen Vogue. Grace Iwashita-Taylor, breathing bloodlines of Samoa, England and Japan, is an artist of upu/words on the page, digital storytelling and live performance, and is dedicated to carving, elevating, and holding spaces for storytellers of Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa.