Why Shane Koyczan Wants To Go Live & Unplugged

Shane Koyczan is worried. He's just come off a stage in Halifax and the Canadian poet knows something is amiss. Where most people would be rejoicing at Halifax's balmy spring, Koyczan thinks it is just more evidence of a worrying trend.

"I think we're at the cute stage of global warming where everyone is ok with it because it's pretty nice weather, which is terrifying in a way. Right now the Halifax I know should be covered in snow, but there's none."

While Koyczan studied Political Science at University with the intention of becoming a politician, the intervention of a helpful professor convinced Koyczan he might be better off using his talents in another way. So the burgeoning writer began to explore political and personal ideas through poetry.

"We're at the cute stage of global warming where everyone is ok with it because it's pretty nice weather."

"I feel more positive about what I'm able to do from the outside," he says. "I don't have a boss. I don't have anybody around to say 'you can't say that'. That's one of the beautiful things about writing and poetry. I had enough of that growing up. I'm done with that chapter of my life."

To make sure Koyczan's words don't just sit on a page in a book gathering dust somewhere, he breathes life into his words onstage every night, performing his poetry to captive audiences eager to listen to his honest and raw stories about bullying, body issues, navigating relationships and anything else that has inspired him to write.

"One of the main themes of my work is reconnecting people to the idea that you are an emotional creature and that's ok. When people come to my shows I want them to know this is a safe space for you to feel.

"The world we're living in now is constantly trying to turn people off. Or it's constantly trying to pacify them; everybody is plugged into their iThings and conversation [has] almost gone extinct.

"I remember when I was a kid you could walk into a cafe and it would just crackle with loud conversation. You can walk into a cafe now and it's like walking into a library. Everybody's plugged into something. The only sound you hear is the steamer."

One of the reasons Koyczan has struck such a chord with his audiences is the stark emotional honesty presented in his poems. His is a confessional language delving into a past littered with bullying and self-image problems.

"I became so uncomfortable with my physical self, my physical place in the universe, I over-compensated by becoming really comfortable with my emotional nudity. I can do that onstage."

But even at a high school where he was taunted and harassed Koyczan had a refuge that would set him on his current path — the school library. Opening the pages of books such as Watership Down enabled Koyczan to disappear into worlds that felt a lot more welcoming than his own.

And even now as an adult Koyczan still dips back into those books that had such an impact on his life to remind himself of the lessons and messages they gave him.

"People always ask me, you've already read it once. Why would you do that again?," Koyczan says with a wry chuckle. "And I say, 'Well, you're my friend but I've already hung out with you once. Should I not do that again?'"