~Spoken Word~

Instructions for A Bad Day

By: Shane Koyczan

 

          For my spoken word analysis I chose Instructions for A Bad Day by the famous poet Shane Koyczan, the writer of To This Day. Like To This Day, I really enjoyed this poem.
          I think one of the things I like most about Shane Koyczan is his voice, which obviously is extremely important in spoken words (Duh! it's spoken!). His voice though soothing, really brings the point across. It's a voice that resonates inside of you, makes you think about everything that he is saying. It's really beautiful.

          Another thing I really like about this spoken word is the small sentence followed by a long sentence. For example, "Be confident. Know that now is only a moment, and if today is as bad as it gets, understand that by tomorrow, today will have ended." This structure is frequently used and I believe it is effective because the short sentence hits you hard, while the long sentence flows and captivates you. Another structure that I really enjoyed in this poem is the constant repetition of the word "be." For example, be calm, be diligent, be gracious. It almost inspires the listener as all the traits are those that we wish to obtain. I also enjoyed how Shane Koyczan used the same sentence to open his poem as he did to end it.

          My favourite line in this poem is the following; "Realize every dark cloud is a smoke screen meant to blind us from the truth, and the truth is whether we see them or not--the sun and the moon are still there and always there is light."

          I really enjoyed the message behind this poem; the thought that no matter how hard life seems, there is always hope. The thought that no matter how bad a day is, there will always be another tomorrow, and though today may have bought you sorrow, the next day will always be better, so let go of those bad days, and look forward to a better time. It's something everyone can relate to; every child, teenager, adult. We all have to face bad days. And when we do, we need to keep our heads held high and face them with a smile on our face because the future will always look better. This message is so important, especially in our society today, where stress and anger plagues the mind of young adults. It's important to let them know it will get better.

        This poem really was beautiful and inspiring. Next time I have bad day, this will be what I listen to in order to keep smiling.

   

It's a Real Life Author!!

       Teresa Toten. Despite being a published author who has won the Governor General's award, this name was unfamiliar to me; I had never heard of her in my life. When we were told that we would get a chance to meet this author, I couldn't find it in me to be that excited. I mean, if I've never heard of her, she couldn't be all that great could she? You always hear about great authors. I didn't know what to expect. But I was surely not expecting to be excited and determined after her presentation. Teresa Toten was phenomenal. 

          Her message was something that I believe I will hold with me forever. Failure is good. I think this is an important message because there comes a moment in life when everyone will fail at something. This doesn't mean that we should give up and sob about how tragic our life is. Failing is a lesson. A lesson that teaches you when life is hard and you don't think you can make it, try again and again and again, because one day you will make it. And at that moment, the sweetness of success is going to taste a whole lot better than it ever could. 

          

          I thought Teresa's life was very inspiring as she went through a lot. She lost her father at a very young age, had to deal with a half-brother bent on killing her and grew up moving from one place to another in a matter of months. Nothing was permanent for her. This emphasizes her success so much more because it is very hard to grow up in such a difficult environment and come out without a single complaint. Another thing I really like about her presentation was that she was very blunt about her flaws. This made me think that even though I was in the presence of a big-shot author, she was like me; she also had her imperfections. 

 

          Another thing I was able to relate to was the fact that she said "all of my books are failures." This is something I have to constantly deal with. If I'm writing an essay, a story, or even this Blog post, it NEVER turns out the way I want it to. In my head I come up with these elaborate plans and beautiful concepts, but as soon as I put it on a page it turns out completely different then what I had thought. That's when it becomes a failure. Even if I get a level 4, I think to myself, what would the plan in my head have gotten? 

          Teresa Toten captivated me from the very first sentence. The way her hand would move almost on its own accord to emphasize her point. The way she walked around the room, her piercing eyes holding you in your spot. The presentation was amazing. She seemed to really enjoy what she was doing even though she never wanted to be an author anyway. This experience was a once in a lifetime opportunity that I'm glad I had the chance to be a part of. I'm definitely going to read The Unlikely Hero of Room 13B. 

Poetry~Reflection

          Poetry has never been one of my fortes. So when I found out we were supposed to write a collection of poems, I knew I was done for.
          I sat for hours just trying to think of what  to write about and then another few hours actually coming up with the words. It was a painfully long process. I started thinking of things that are important in life and that's how I came up with my first poem; Freedom.
          Now the title is pretty self-explanatory, this poem was about freedom. The title probably could've been better thought out, but unfortunately it was all I could think of. I made this poem about sound and instantly regretted it as I wracked my brain for rhyming words. I followed the structure to the best of my abilities by using the a,b,a,b rhyming scheme and used a lot of metaphors and similies throughout the poem. Another poetry device I used was personification. I made Freedom into a character, saying things like: "Freedom was my friend, a companion to love." I believe that this poem does evoke a feeling of pain and sadness, which is what I was aiming for. To have something like freedom being taken away from you, it's not easy, and I feel like this poem shows how necessary freedom is by showing how unattainable it is for the character in the poem. I used very formal diction in order to get a sense of detachment and a "given up" feeling...which is kind of depressing. I guess my grammar and punctuation is consistent...I mean I don't really know. And the poem was appropriate length. I think the strength of this poem was the rhyming and rythm. Words like replaced, embraced and gone, dawn, really helped put the poem together. A weakness in my poem was most definitely that it wouldn't really make sense to the reader. They would understand it was about freedom but they wouldn't really get what happened to strip this character from it. While writing this, all I saw in my head was a guy in a prison cell, so I really couldn't answer what had happened to him; I didn't think that far.
        All in all, I guess it was an okay poem.

        My second poem was an image poem. I absolutely hated the title. I called it Reality. As soon as I typed it in I hated it. But of course I couldn't think of something better until after I had handed it in. With this image poem I attempted to portray the struggles of suffering that some people have to go through. I really liked how this poem turned out, though it wasn't exactly as I hoped it would be. I used the constant repetition of the word "Imagine" in order to paint a picture in the reader's mind and I think it was quite effective. I really thought of cacophony here in order to make the readers realize the harshness and severity of the situation and I feel like that might have been a weakness because I tend to get carried away with stuff like that. I thought that the ending was the best part, though originally I had intended to get rid of it. Here it is: "The time has come, to come together, and make this reality something we could never imagine." I felt like this line evoked a strong sense of inspiration and a "do something" attitude which is what I was going for. The rest of the poem, like the first one, is quite depressing (which makes me realize that a lot of my poems are quite depressing…weird). Out of the entire collection, I think that this one was the best.

         The first haiku, Into the Light, was okay, I suppose. Like the others, I hated the title (I'm sensing a pattern here…), but I felt that the concept was intriguing. The idea of someone heading off into this supposed "light." Don't get me wrong, I believe in heaven, I'm just a little skeptical about this bright, white light. So I wrote about someone going into this light. I followed the 5, 7, 5 structure; though I was hoping Mr. Heneke wouldn't notice a dropped syllable here or there. I liked the use of my words here, for example, "A small step forward," which kind of signifies the fear of the person as well as my skepticism about the light. A weakness of the poem was, in my opinion, the use of the title in the poem. It just kind of felt like I was repeating myself and it sounded kind of off. At least it wasn't as depressing as the other ones…even though the guy died.

         I had had enough of my depressing poems so I practically forced myself to write a happy one. It was about love and I called it: Smile, Love. I guess the title for this one was okay, could have been better but at the same time it could've been worse. A weakness of this poem was that it was a giant cliché. I mean you see it in books and movies. The guy or the girl smiles and their partner practically falls to their knees begging for attention. It may be a cliché, but it's still sweet. So I guess a strength was that it was different, out of my comfort zone and not depressing. I followed the structure and it was an appropriate length. It wasn't my favourite, but I was glad that I tried something different.

         Bolt of Light was my final haiku. This one was more like a typical haiku because it was connected to nature, a storm in particular. Following the structure was easy; however, the poem did not turn out at all as I had wanted it to. It didn't make sense at all which was also the biggest weakness. This one was definitely not the best.

         I liked my last poem; Queen of Hearts (I actually liked the title too! Surprised?). I thought it would be interesting to think like the Queen from Alice in Wonderland. I believe that I was able to portray her well, cruel, easily annoyed and restless. In my poem I show the Queen commanding her guard to behead a creature but I didn't explain why or what he did in order to deserve that. That would be my weakness. This was a character poem and I believe I was able to portray, with the right words, the personality of the Queen. For example, my favourite part of the poem is as follows: "I smirked at the creature before me, inferior in every way, before turning to the guards, with my own expectant gaze. "You know the drill," I said, "OFF WITH HIS HEAD."" I believe I portrayed her well especially by using her "catchphrase."