{"id":505,"date":"2014-10-10T08:25:00","date_gmt":"2014-10-10T08:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/?p=505"},"modified":"2018-11-20T05:42:00","modified_gmt":"2018-11-20T05:42:00","slug":"poetry-fridayturning-pages-to-this-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/?p=505","title":{"rendered":"Poetry Friday\/TURNING PAGES: TO THIS DAY by Shane Koyczan"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

because there’s something in side you
\nthat made you keep trying
\ndespite everyone who told you to quit
\nyou build a cast around your
\nbroken heart
\nand signed it yourself
\n          you signed it
\n“THEY WERE WRONG”<\/p>\n

…
\nwe are graduating members from the class of
\nWE MADE IT
\nnot the faded echoes of voices crying out
\nnames will never hurt me<\/i>
\n      of course
\n         they did<\/p>\n

~ Shane Koyczan, “To This Day”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This past Monday, October 6, was World Bullying Prevention Day.<\/a> If you didn’t know that, that’s okay – it’s less known than National Pink Shirt Day<\/a> in February, or STAND UP Day<\/a> in November, or other anti-bullying campaigns in various schools and in various states across the country, and around the world. Monday was just another tiny stone in the edifice that bravehearts are constructing against bullying and bullies in our schools and in our society.<\/p>\n

The book I’m sharing with you today is probably of a poem you’ve already heard – this spoken word performance got something like 1.4 billion hits on Youtube by its second day up in 2013. After the author performed during a TED talk – which is wrenching and gorgeous – the poem’s popularity soared further.<\/p>\n

So, you’ve probably heard this before. But, since July of this past summer, it’s in book form, which means it’s now Cybils-eligible (woot) and it’s also time to share it again. Take a few minutes, and listen to his spoken word performance in its entirety, and see the work of the eighty animators with Giant Ant Studios who helped him make his TED talk video possible.<\/p>\n