New breed of poet

There’s a new breed of poet out there and he comes packaged as Shane Koyczan, a spoken word virtuoso who brought the Arden Theatre audience to its feet last Friday night – much as he did in New York, London, Edinburgh, Sydney and Los Angeles.

Not only had the show sold out months ago, but the buzz was in about his star power. Was he a modern day Ginsberg, Kerouac or Leonard Cohen? Many seemed to think so.

Although a quick Google search lists him as the first Canadian to win the U.S. Slam Poetry Championship and a champ at the Canadian Spoken Word Olympics, he was still a surprise hit. Unfortunately the media rarely profiles poets and they tend to fly under the radar.

But Koyczan is different. He is a mesmerizing contemporary voice with a great deal to say and the chutzpah to say it. But it’s usually layered with humour.

A big, chubby man, he stepped onto the stage wearing a poor boy cap, a chinstrap beard and a twinkle in his eye that warned of an upcoming turbulent night of emotions.

The first words to spill from his lips were, “It’s amazing to see so many people out at a poetry reading. Most people would say, ‘F…, I’m trapped at a poetry reading.’”

The crowd exploded with laughter and right from the get-go Koyczan cupped the audience in his palm and shaped it like putty.

The Yellowknife-born, Kelowna-raised poet broke the ice with a silly poem about cows before flooding the stage with lush, image-filled verses on cancer, life and death, sex, love, breakups, high school crushes and the incessant bullying that destroys people’s sense of worth.

Koyczan, you see, was one of those fat kids tortured by school bullies and he is candid about how the bullying sent him into a deep, angst-filled depression.

But as he told us, one of his poems, Instructions for a Bad Day, was even used as a healing tool. A community that had six teen suicides in one year commissioned it.

He rhymed several poems on bullying and in each there was a volcanic rage, but it was tempered with a Shakespearean grandeur that removed some of the sting, but not the intensity.

His rhyming is extraordinarily powerful. It takes you straight into the heart of something and comes bubbling deep from within his gut – whether it’s the hobbling pain delivered by bullies or the sweet, caressing pleasures of lovemaking.

One of his sweetest poems was dedicated to Penny, a 12-year-old classmate he had a deep crush on. Unfortunately she moved one summer and he did not even have the chance to say goodbye.

Koyczan’s words electrified. At times they scorched. But in the next breath they stoked gently like smooth silk. It didn’t take long to realize Koyczan was a poet, philosopher, psychologist, ham actor and comic all rolled into a voice that touches us at our deepest core.

Together we laughed and wept through the hour – each one of us reliving our own childhood and subsequent romances as adults. And at each turn, we rediscovered ourselves and found inspiration for a new day.

Koyczan returns to Edmonton on April 13 with his band The Short Story Long for a CD release at the Haven Social Club.