Shane Koyczan shared his poems with residents of Fort McMurray on March 23, 2017.
During Koyczan’s show he aims at taking the audience through a range of emotions.
“One of the problems with the world right now, is that people are constantly being told to shut off their emotions because it interferes with their productivity. So it feels like a lot of the times these days, people are asking for permission to feel the things they want to feel,” said Koyczan.
He is known for his writing about bullying and other hard hitting topics such as eating disorders, cancer and death and he has also given a TED talk.
While most of Koyczan’s poems stem from his own personal experience, he admitted to being a bit of a people watcher.
“There is really poetic moments in snippets of conversation you pick up, while you’re waiting for the bus. A lot of the beauty of life I find, comes down to simple awareness,” Koyczan said.
“Opening yourself up to that and really being considerate, like the person in front of you is angry at the cashier, really start to internalize and think ‘okay what are they going through today.'”
He added that he is really trying to make strangers, less strange.
Koyczan is the first speaker of the Wood Buffalo Regional Libraries (WBRL) Centre Stage speaker series.
WBRL plans to announce the second in June.
