I first encountered Shane Koyczan’s work when he presented his poem We Are More at the 2010 Winter Olympics at Vancouver.  Like so many others, I was enraptured and sought out more of his poetry.  At that time all that was available were a few YouTube videos.  Since then, Shane has been on many tours and has published three books and a studio album. He is fast, furious, funny, compassionate and human. His ideals are real.

Shane is noted for his poems against bullying and about cancer, illness, loss, and eating disorders. One video of Shane’s anti-bullying poem To This Day (a TED video) has had nearly 1,900,000 views alone. Having said that, the version I like best is below, which has 7,000-plus views but is accompanied by dance and is delightfully artful. Shane’s Amazon page is HERE.

“We so seldom understand each other. But if understanding is neither here nor there, and the universe is infinite, then understand that no matter where we go we will always be smack dab in the middle of nowhere. All we can do is share some piece of ourselves, and hope that it’s remembered. Hope that we meant something to someone”  Shane Koyczan