Shane Koyczan, as far as I can tell, began being noticed as a social media artist. Lets be honest, most of the greatest artists of this generation began on social media i.e. Justin Beiber, and he's Canadian, too! That was a really bad joke. I apologize, mostly for distantly comparing Koyczan to the Beibster. I digress.
Shane Koyczan, a 36 year old Canadian poet, who can magically turn your laughter into tears in approximately 2.3 seconds, all while considering the condition of humanity and all the other important things of life that are concentrated on far too little. He unapologetically says what needs to be said in the words that shouldn't be censored. Yes, thats a disclaimer that he isn't exactly politically correct and properly uses four letter words in context. In 2000 he was the first Canadian to win the Individual Championship Title at the National Poetry Slam. The first piece I was introduced to by Koyczan was "The Crickets Have Arthritis" . I went home that day, my mind quickly being changed about modern poets, and promptly googled in his name, which took me his Tumblr, which I poured over for hours upon hours, and continued his social media exploitation. He read "We Are More" at the Opening Ceremonies for the Winter Olympics in 2010. I'm fairly certain that he exploded after February of this year when "To This Day" was performed live at TED Talks. He's published a handful of books, and released several albums of poetry.
I could go on and on and on about Shane Koyczan, not that I know him personally, but I'm pretty sure he's just as cool a person as he is a poet. He's real. That's what I like most about him. The whole entire point of this was to say, "You, the reader (which I don't expect to have many of) should check out Shane Koyczan" and I may have been able to say that more effectively by just that one sentence, but I felt the need to ramble and validate, though he needs no validation or explanation. Just go listen. Savor. Enjoy.
-Leeryn.
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