This work brought together a collection his spoken word and poetry, all dealing with the “intricacies of human emotions.” He went on to publish his first full-length poetry collection in 2005 called Visiting Hours. From there, he continued to garner success for his slam poetry. At the National Poetry Slam in 2000, he won the Individual Championship title, making him the first Canadian to win. Shane Koyzcan was born in 1976 in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories. All of these pieces work together to create the art of spoken word. Hearing a poem read by its author adds an additional dimension to any work.The inflection, the empty spaces, the tone. “But we are more than genteel or civilized/ we are an idea in the process of being realized.” See a version of the poem with visuals.For this week of National Poetry Month, we are featuring spoken word poetry and poets. “We’re more than hockey and fishing lines/ off the rocky coast of the Maritimes/ some say what defines us/ is something as simple as please and thank you,” spits Koyczan in this poem. He even performed it at the opening ceremonies of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics, for a television audience of more than 1 billion people. For more of Koyczan’s poems, read on.Ī proud Canuck, Koyczan wrote the poem “We Are More” for the Canadian Tourism Commission. To hear more of Koyczan’s motivation, and to hear a beautiful live rendition of “To This Day,” watch this talk. See, my dreams got called names too - silly, foolish, impossible.” My dreams are self-conscious and overly apologetic-they’re standing alone at the high school dance and they’ve never been kissed. “Granted my dreams are shy, because they’re Canadian. “What made my dreams so easy to dismiss?” he asks.

“At the same time as we were being told who we were, we were being asked, ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’” Koyczan’s answers were: a writer, then a professional wrestler. Koyczan says it wasn’t just overt bullying he was reacting to - but the subtle discouragement kids receive along the path to adulthood, as they’re required to define themselves in narrower and narrower ways. Live onstage, mixing poetry and prose, Koyczan explains to the audience what prompted to him to write the poem, an ode to anyone who felt bullied or left out as a child, and have it animated by people around the world. Koyczan appeared on the TED2013 stage just a week after his spoken-word poem, “To This Day,” went viral as a crowd-animated video. But that’s hard to do if you don’t know who you are.” “That’s what we were told-stand up for yourself. “I’ve been shot down so many times I get altitude sickness just from standing up for myself,” he says, beginning today’s talk.

Turn on a Light by Shane Koyczan