We’re excited to see Shane’s work included in the latest Amnesty International Campaign, Artists for Amnesty. Dozens of well known artists have donated work, available for free download,  in an effort to raise awarness around the importance of Freedom of Expression.

It’s an incredible list of artists, you should probably check it out and download something here, now!

Shane is excited to accept a BC Civil Liberties Award for Excellence in the Arts. He’ll be attending the 2013 Gala to accept the award. See you there perhaps?

About the Gala:

The Liberty Awards Gala will be held to honour exceptional contributions to the fields of human rights and civil liberties in Canada.  Celebrating excellence in legal advocacy, journalism, the arts and youth activism, the Liberty Awards bring together Canada’s preeminent social justice champions.

As the premier fundraising event of the BC Civil Liberties Union calendar, the event will also have a silent auction component, featuring a great list of items.

The BC Civil Liberties Association members and supporters represent the best of Vancouver and British Columbia’s legal, philanthropic, media and arts community. Join us for this special celebration.

TED was not a career highlight. TED was a life highlight. I don’t recall ever having felt so held by an audience. Thank you.— Shane Koyczan (@Koyczan) March 1, 2013

We’ll have to wait a bit before Shane Koyczan’s Ted Talk video is shared with the world, until then we Can rely on the comments from those in the crowd.

Shane Koyczan on TED: What People are saying about his talk

Helen Walters wrote on the TED Blog:

an intimate, heartfelt look into a life that has not always been easy. “I’ve been shot down so many times I get altitude sickness just from standing up for myself,” he says.

Being told to stand up for yourself is a common response to trouble. But “that’s hard to do if you don’t know who you are.” Asked what he wanted to do when he grew up, Koyczan found it a difficult question to answer. “When I was a kid, I wanted to be a man,” he says. “When I was a kid, I wanted to shave. Now, not so much.” (Koyczan, it should be noted, has an impressively full beard.) “When I was 8, I wanted to be a marine biologist. When I was 9, I saw the movie Jaws and said ‘no thank you.’”

He said he wanted to be a writer. And he was told: “Choose something realistic.” He said he wanted to be a professional wrestler. “They said, don’t be stupid. They asked me what I wanted to be, then told me what not to be. I wondered what made my dreams so easy to dismiss.”

David Lee from the Vancouver Sun wrote this in today’s paper:

Shane was nervous when he stepped onto the TED stage, looking out at a packed audience.

“Oh, so many of you,” he said.

Koyczan struck a nerve with the crowd of wealthy venture capitalists, scientists, philanthropists and all-around over-achievers when he told them how so many people like him start their lives conditioned to failure.

“They asked me what I wanted to be and then told me what not to be,” he said of his first teachers.

Koyczan first warmed the crowd up with humour, talking about how he sabotaged a bully by giving him fake answers to a test. But he then grew serious, telling the story of why he now hates pork chops — he was given that name by school bullies who twisted a favourite meaning he shared with his grandmother.”

First things first…

Thank you, thank you, thank you. The reaction to this piece has been phenomenal to say the least.

Shane expressed it best when he tweeted:

Any words of gratitude seem frail and insufficient in the face of such overwhelming love. Nevertheless I thank you, thank you, thank you.

— Shane Koyczan (@Koyczan) February 21, 2013

How can I help?

We’re still working on what’s next, rest assured it’s exciting. The best way for you to help take action is to subscribe to #ToThisDay Project Updates.

Click here to get project updates.

By subscribing you will be the first to know, and hopefully, the first to take action when we announce our next steps.

You’ll be one of thousands of people who are ready to stand up to bullying. What a beautiful group of people it will be.

I have an idea! Who can I send it to?

If you have suggestions on how we can take this message to a bigger audience, to have a wider impact, to do more, please let us know.

We’ve create a form for ideas and collaborations. If you have anything to share, please click here to submit comments, suggestions or collaboration ideas.

Thank you for being you, for helping us spread this message and for looking for the beauty in this world.

You’re the best.

- To This Day Project Team

If you enjoyed this piece, please consider subscribing to my newsletter. Receive a new poem every month. free. Click here to subscribe.

To This Day by Shane Koyczan

To This Day
When I was a kid
I used to think that pork chops and karate chops
were the same thing
I thought they were both pork chops
and because my grandmother thought it was cute
and because they were my favourite
she let me keep doing it

not really a big deal

one day
before I realized fat kids are not designed to climb trees
I fell out of a tree
and bruised the right side of my body

I didn’t want to tell my grandmother about it
because I was afraid I’d get in trouble
for playing somewhere that I shouldn’t have been

a few days later the gym teacher noticed the bruise
and I got sent to the principal’s office
from there I was sent to another small room
with a really nice lady
who asked me all kinds of questions
about my life at home

I saw no reason to lie
as far as I was concerned
life was pretty good
I told her “whenever I’m sad
my grandmother gives me karate chops”

this led to a full scale investigation
and I was removed from the house for three days
until they finally decided to ask how I got the bruises

news of this silly little story quickly spread through the school
and I earned my first nickname

pork chop

to this day
I hate pork chops

I’m not the only kid
who grew up this way
surrounded by people who used to say
that rhyme about sticks and stones
as if broken bones
hurt more than the names we got called
and we got called them all
so we grew up believing no one
would ever fall in love with us
that we’d be lonely forever
that we’d never meet someone
to make us feel like the sun
was something they built for us
in their tool shed
so broken heart strings bled the blues
as we tried to empty ourselves
so we would feel nothing
don’t tell me that hurts less than a broken bone
that an ingrown life
is something surgeons can cut away
that there’s no way for it to metastasize

it does

she was eight years old
our first day of grade three
when she got called ugly
we both got moved to the back of the class
so we would stop get bombarded by spit balls
but the school halls were a battleground
where we found ourselves outnumbered day after wretched day
we used to stay inside for recess
because outside was worse
outside we’d have to rehearse running away
or learn to stay still like statues giving no clues that we were there
in grade five they taped a sign to her desk
that read beware of dog

to this day
despite a loving husband
she doesn’t think she’s beautiful
because of a birthmark
that takes up a little less than half of her face
kids used to say she looks like a wrong answer
that someone tried to erase
but couldn’t quite get the job done
and they’ll never understand
that she’s raising two kids
whose definition of beauty
begins with the word mom
because they see her heart
before they see her skin
that she’s only ever always been amazing

he
was a broken branch
grafted onto a different family tree
adopted
but not because his parents opted for a different destiny
he was three when he became a mixed drink
of one part left alone
and two parts tragedy
started therapy in 8th grade
had a personality made up of tests and pills
lived like the uphills were mountains
and the downhills were cliffs
four fifths suicidal
a tidal wave of anti depressants
and an adolescence of being called popper
one part because of the pills
and ninety nine parts because of the cruelty
he tried to kill himself in grade ten
when a kid who still had his mom and dad
had the audacity to tell him “get over it” as if depression
is something that can be remedied
by any of the contents found in a first aid kit

to this day
he is a stick of TNT lit from both ends
could describe to you in detail the way the sky bends
in the moments before it’s about to fall
and despite an army of friends
who all call him an inspiration
he remains a conversation piece between people
who can’t understand
sometimes becoming drug free
has less to do with addiction
and more to do with sanity

we weren’t the only kids who grew up this way
to this day
kids are still being called names
the classics were
hey stupid
hey spaz
seems like each school has an arsenal of names
getting updated every year
and if a kid breaks in a school
and no one around chooses to hear
do they make a sound?
are they just the background noise
of a soundtrack stuck on repeat
when people say things like
kids can be cruel?
every school was a big top circus tent
and the pecking order went
from acrobats to lion tamers
from clowns to carnies
all of these were miles ahead of who we were
we were freaks
lobster claw boys and bearded ladies
oddities
juggling depression and loneliness playing solitaire spin the bottle
trying to kiss the wounded parts of ourselves and heal
but at night
while the others slept
we kept walking the tightrope
it was practice
and yeah
some of us fell

but I want to tell them
that all of this shit
is just debris
leftover when we finally decide to smash all the things we thought
we used to be
and if you can’t see anything beautiful about yourself
get a better mirror
look a little closer
stare a little longer
because there’s something inside you
that made you keep trying
despite everyone who told you to quit
you built a cast around your broken heart
and signed it yourself
you signed it
“they were wrong”
because maybe you didn’t belong to a group or a click
maybe they decided to pick you last for basketball or everything
maybe you used to bring bruises and broken teeth
to show and tell but never told
because how can you hold your ground
if everyone around you wants to bury you beneath it
you have to believe that they were wrong

they have to be wrong

why else would we still be here?
we grew up learning to cheer on the underdog
because we see ourselves in them
we stem from a root planted in the belief
that we are not what we were called we are not abandoned cars stalled out and sitting empty on a highway
and if in some way we are
don’t worry
we only got out to walk and get gas
we are graduating members from the class of
fuck off we made it
not the faded echoes of voices crying out
names will never hurt me

of course
they did

but our lives will only ever always
continue to be
a balancing act
that has less to do with pain
and more to do with beauty.

—

Want more? Get  A free poem (by me, Shane Koyczan)  in your inbox every month. Click here.

Help this message have a far reaching and long lasting effect in confronting bullying. Please share generously. Click to Tweet

About the Project

This animated piece is the result of a group of individuals coming together and binding their talents in an expression of solidarity and compassion. I am humbled by the extraordinary efforts of those who selflessly gave their time and committed themselves to bring out this message in such a beautiful way.

My experiences with violence in schools still echo throughout my life but standing to face the problem has helped me in immeasurable ways.

I wrote “To This Day”, a spoken word poem, to further explore the profound and lasting impact that bullying can have on an individual.

Schools and families are in desperate need of proper tools to confront this problem. We can give them a starting point… A message that will have a far reaching and long lasting effect in confronting bullying.

Buy the Track: BandCamp / iTunes
Join us: Subscribe

Anti-bullying Resources

Find Anti-bullying tools and resources at Bullying.org
https://twitter.com/Bullying_org

Sincere Thank-you’s

None of this would be possible without the participation of the following people and organizations:

Animators:

Ryan Kothe
Mike Healey
Will Fortanbary
Brian San
Diego De la Rocha
Gizelle Manalo
Adam Plouff
Mike Wolfram
Hyun Min Bae
Oliver Sin
Seth Eckert
Viraj Ajmeri
Vishnu Ganti
Yun Wang
Boris Wilmot
Cameron Spencer
DeAndria Mackey
Matt Choi
Reimo Õun
Samantha Bjalek
Eli Treviño
Ariel Costa
Caleb Coppock
James Mabery
Samir Hamiche
Waref Abu Quba
Deo Mareza and Clara
Josh Parker
Scott Cannon
Thomas McKeen
Kaine Asika
Marcel Krumbiegel
Teresa del Pozo
Eric Paoli Infanzón
Maxwell Hathaway
Rebecca Berdel
Zach Ogilvie
Anand Mistry
Chase Ogden
Dominik Grejc
Gideon Prins
Lucy Chen
Mercedes Testa
Rickard Bengtsson
Stina Seppel
Daniel Göttling
Julio C. Kurokodile
Marilyn Cherenko
Tim Darragh
Jaime Ugarte
Joe Donaldson
Josh Beaton
Margaret Schiefer
Rodrigo Ribeiro
Ryan Kaplan
Yeimi Salazar
Daniel Bartels
Joe Donaldson
Daniel Molina
Sitji Chou
Tong Zhang
Luc Journot
Vincent Bilodeau
Amy Schmitt
Bert Beltran
Daniel Moreno Cordero
Marie Owona
Mateusz Kukla
Sean Procter
Steven Fraser
Aparajita R
Ben Chwirka
Cale Oglesby
Igor Komolov
Markus Magnusson
Remington McElhaney
Tim Howe
Agil Pandri
Jessie Tully
Sander Joon
Kumphol Ponpisute
James Waters
Chris Koelsch
Ronald Rabideau
Alessandro & Manfredi
Andrea López
Howey Mitsakos

Giant Ant Studios
Leah Nelson
Jorge R. Canedo Estrada
Alicia Katz
for having the bravery to helm such a monumental project.

Brett Wilson
Joni Avram
for their generosity of spirit and tireless support.

Olivia Mennell
Maiya Robbie
Stefan Bienz
Corwin Fox
Aaron Joyce
Christina Zaenker
Melissa Bandura
for creating such a beautiful piece of music and having the patience to explore this art form with me.

Christi Thompson
Jess Sloss
for keeping me organized and making me appear to look like I know what I’m doing.

Loretta Mozart AKA my Grandmother
Sandy Garossino
Nea Reid
bullying.org
for never saying “You can’t do that.” For always saying “OK… how can I help?”

This is just a taste of what’s to come. Watch for the full piece February 19th.

Click here to Subscribe to the newsletter to get it first.

About the “To This Day” Project

“My experiences with violence in schools still echo throughout my life but standing to face the problem has helped me in immeasurable ways.

I wrote “To This Day”, a spoken word poem, to further explore the profound and lasting impact that bullying can have on an individual.

Schools and families are in desperate need of proper tools to confront this problem. We can give them a starting point… A message that will have a far reaching and long lasting effect in confronting bullying.”

Please share far and wide.

The Dalai Lama Center for Peace and Education educates the heart and fosters compassion through: creative learning, facilitating and applying research, and connecting people and ideas.

Learn more by visiting – Educating the Heart

The Scotsman – 5 Stars

“Conceptual fun and games are all very well, but they’re no substitute for mastery of the music of language, and in this Canadian performance poet Shane Koyczan is in a class of his own. Most of the poems in his show, Talk Rocker, deal with his troubled childhood. “It wasn’t a very good one,” he deadpans – a colossal understatement, as it turns out – but from all the years of bullying, loneliness and worse, Koyczan has forged some of blisteringly good poems.

They’re often deeply sad, occasionally laugh-out-loud funny, but always, in the end, profoundly uplifting. They sound beautiful, too, ebbing and flowing like little symphonies. Even if you didn’t understand a single word of English, you’d still find Koyczan a pleasure to listen to.”

Read the full review – Spoken Word Reviews

Broadway Baby – 4 Stars

“After just a couple of pieces I was totally gripped. Koyczan is an enthralling performer, and seems to pour a huge quantity of emotional energy into every reading. His poems are mostly untitled, and each piece’s preamble runs very naturally into the poem proper, giving the hour a slick, well-rehearsed feel that keeps things ticking along…

If criticism could be levelled at Koyczan, it’s that his work is occasionally cloying, or overly optimistic, but this is part and parcel with the sheer emotional force at play in the work. If you’re a fan of spoken word or slam poetry, this is an excellent example of the medium. If not, this is a pretty intense place to start, but there’s a convincing argument to be made for jumping in at the deep end.”

Read the review here – More Than Just Talk