Shane Koyaczan is a Canadian spoken word poet and writer, born on 22 May, 1976 in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada. His adventure with writing started because of necessity. He had to pay a phone bill but he did not have money. He decided to participate in a local “poetry slam” contest after seeing the poster on the streetlamp in Vancouver. Koyaczan participated in the poetry slam and won. The prize allowed him to pay for that bill. From that point onward, he began his career. We, as readers, can conclude, his poems can tell a lot about himself. His poems are self-reflection, pieces of memories, pieces of his own biography starting with “when I was a kid…”. He was a kid who, abandoned by his parents, was brought up by his grandmother. …show more content…
Since this incident happened the boy got a new nickname “pork chop”. This moment has affected his whole future life. “To this day” he “hate pork chops”. This is where the title of the poem comes from. Shane Koyczan emphasizes this day as a metaphor of one, significant moment in humans’ life. Moments that can change everything in the future perception of one’s whole life. For the speaker in the poem it was the day in which he lost his confidence. This day left a scar inside him that did not allow him to live normally. The speaker of the poem says: I am not the only one kid who grew up this way Surrounded by people who used to say that rhyme about stick and stones (35-37) “I am not the only one kid […]”- by this phrase Koyczan emphasizes that he was not the only one kid who was bullied. This is the point where he wants to show that this problem refers to many kids by introducing readers to the social context on an issue. He takes the very important step that is the identification with bullied kids who are the readers or listeners of this
Throughout his writing career, Soto has written eleven poetry collections for adults and has been awarded both the Bess Hokin Prize and the Levinson Award. He is a recipient of the Tomas Rivera Prize and has earned awards from the PEN Center and National Education Association. His works have been critiqued and praised on numerous occasions, and he was named NBC’s Person-of-the-Week in 1997 for his advocacy for reading. However, as a young boy, Soto never expected any of this. It was in college when one book of poetry would change his life forever.
In the poem titled “the great electrical revelotion” by ken Mitchell, I found this story in particular very interesting because, coming from a third world country, such practices are fairly normal. In the sense that when the access to -a life force such electricity is hindered or disconnected by the power authority or in some cases the TV cable is disconnected, individuals still find a solution to this issues my bypassing the normal connection and stealing free electricity or cable from the distribution tower. This passage by ken Mitchell, narrates the life of ken as a young boy leaving with his relatives in Montreal then travelling to moose jaw, this poem centers around the period of time where the Canadian economy was in a depression, and as with every depression there is a
This proves that Jack is confident about poetry because he is being inspired by other poetics and he is now starting to write his own poems. Throughout the book, Jack’s thoughts about poetry have grow from timid, then he changed to reluctant and enthusiastic, and now he is confident about poetry because he is now starting to enjoy poetry more and write his own
The main focus throughout the duration of the book is bullying; tone, symbolization, and modern connections help provide the understanding that bullying is a never- ending issue. The villains and the hero of the world both have the right to exist, they both have a purpose and what we learn from them helps everyone
The theme of standing up to bullies is used throughout the entire book on many different characters, Chris Coughlin is one that has learned how to stand up to his bully. Throughout the book, Chris gets bullied by Mike about him wearing his dead brother’s letter jacket, but towards the end of the book, Chris and Mike decide to race for cutter letter jackets. With the encouragement from the other swimmers, Chris manages to beat Mike in the race. Now in modern day, standing up to bullies is a big social problem, one modern example of standing up to bullying was when Keaton Jones, an 11 year old school student was being bullied and he decided not to stay quiet about it. Keaton had recorded a video of himself talking about him being bullied and how it affects victims of bullying, his mother later posted the video online
Julia Alvarez, in her poem “’Poetry Makes Nothing Happen’?”, writes that poems do play a role in people’s lives. She supports her idea by using relateable examples of how poems might change someone’s life. Her first example is simple, poetry can entertain someone on long drives. This does not only aply to long dirves however, Alvarez uses this to show that poetry does not have to have a big influence on someone’s life, instead it can affect a person in the smallest of ways, such as entertainment. The second example describes poetry comforting someone after the loss of a loved one.
“Hate Poem” by Julie Sheehan describes how she transformed hatred to love. By looking at her pattern of thinking, it involves her own experience in the daily life that result the conflicts between her loves and hates. This poem begins with “I hate you truly. Truly I do” (1). This opening did not match the idea of a poem about hate; instead it is a poem about love.
In the first stanza, we can already see how this poem can relate to the world today and how we feel about certain things. We as humans don't like change. Sometimes, we want something to happen so bad, that we don't consider how our life might change if this wish, this hope of something, actually happened. We sometimes may want something so bad, but fear what the consequences might be if something goes
In lines eight through twelve of the poem, the speaker states “I don’t ask myself what I’m looking for. I didn’t come for answers to a place like this, I came to walk on the earth, still cold, still silent.” The speaker says that the earth is cold and silent, illustrating how he or she sees the world as dead and cold. As readers go through the poem they can tell how the speaker was expecting life to turn out the way it did. By the speaker stating in lines thirteen through eight-teen “Still unforgiving, I’ve said to myself, although it greets me with last year’s dead thistles and this year’s hard spines, early blooming wild onions, the curling remains of spider’s cloth” it shows how he views the world as a bad place that never produces anything good.
The poem, Useless Boys,is one that portrays a feeling of indignation, rebellion and finally, understanding by two boys who grew up with bitter views of their fathers’ onerous jobs. The narrator believes that the only reason his father stays at his job is for the money. In his naivety the son does not realize that at times living selfishly is the way things have to be. Sometimes commitments are made in a self-sacrificial and cowardly manner. No matter how “wrecking” his father’s career, he stays in order to provide for his family.
Nowadays bullying has become the major and common problem for children and can awfully affect their lives in many different ways such as depression and suicide. William Golding’s novel, Lord of the Flies, takes place in the 1950’s in England, where Golding used to be a school teacher and face many types of problems among children. According to his novel, bullying is a particular problem for Piggy who cannot fit in a community because of his initial appearance. Even though Lord of the Flies has many purposes and it is not focused on just one target, Golding explains bullying and its impacts on Piggy very smoothly beside the main idea of the story. He shows how bullying causes Piggy to lose his self-confidence, breaking his glasses and became dependent and intimidated.
Li-Young Lee’s poem “Eating Alone” expresses a son’s loneliness and love for his father that has passed away. He continuously connects the father to all that the speaker does whether it is lifeful or not. Lee does so in a way through imagery, tone, and irony. Li-Young Lee uses imagery in “Eating Alone” through life and death.
The speaker as a child would see his father as a harsh man but as an adult, when he looked back he saw that his father had a love for his family. His father's love could be considered as a hidden love. However in the poem “Piano” the speaker's life seemed great until he looked back at his past to see his mother playing the piano and
Which is that beauty comes from within. His purpose is teaching the poet that in order to create true and inspiring art he must look deep inside of himself. He starts to develop this idea with an extended metaphor as he explains that even if you have come to your lowest point in life “you still have your childhood, that jewel beyond all price, that treasure house of memories” (3) to inspire you and give you life again. This statement shows that even when you have been beat up and are lost you still have your priceless jewels of your past. Memories are something so beautiful and priceless that can not be taken away from you, because it comes from within you.
How would you like it if you had to fit in? The poet Erin Hanson, who goes by E.H., wrote the poem “Welcome to Society”. The poem is summarized by the third and fourth lines, which state, “And please feel free to be yourself/ As long as it’s in the right way.” Hanson expresses the theme of social acceptance through his/her use of conflict, word choice, and idioms throughout the poem.