Shane Koyczan
Shane Koyczan
Shane L. Koyczanis a Canadian spoken word poet, writer, and member of the group Tons of Fun University known for writing about issues like bullying, cancer, death, and eating disorders. He is most famous for the anti-bullying poem To This Day which has over 18 million views...
NationalityCanadian
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth22 May 1976
CountryCanada
reflection mirrors looks
Look directly into every mirror. Realize our reflection is the first sentence to a story, and our story starts: We were here.
growing hearing people posters school
For me, growing up and going to school and not seeing any anti-bullying posters and not hearing people talk about bullying was very desolate.
fastest poetry
For me, poetry was... the fastest way to express what I was feeling, what I was going through.
age call lasting learn life small starts
Bullying, to me, starts very small around the kindergarten age where the first thing we learn is to call each other names. Something so small can be so long lasting in someone's life.
avoid bad
When something's painful, you just avoid it. Why bother dredging up the past if it's nothing but bad stuff?
dramatic marriage music opera original words
Opera is the original marriage of words and music, and there's a theatre element, a dramatic element. It's right up my alley.
amazed guess initially people realized relate somebody time within work
I guess initially I was amazed that somebody would see something within my work that they could really relate to, but the more it's happened, the more people have come forward, I've really realized that we're all kind of going through the same thing at the same time.
athletes everybody gets
I think everybody gets bullied in their own way. Even athletes probably get it from their parents. To a degree everybody gets bullied.
enjoyment quick
I got bullied a lot when I was a kid, and because of that I thought for the most part that I didn't really have a childhood - I had to grow up so quick and there was no real enjoyment in that for me.
bed break careful good hid hiding someday
I hid my heart under my bed because my mother said if you're not careful someday somebody's going to break it. Take it from me, under the bed is not a good hiding spot.
karate
When I was a kid, I used to think pork chops and karate chops were the same thing.
doctors scratches do-you-love-me
A question like “do you love me?” was an itch our doctors told us not to scratch.
ideas
We're all shipwrecked on this idea that everything has to be explained.
motivation inspiration sickness
I've been shot down so many times I get altitude sickness just from standing up for myself.