It’s been awfully quiet on here lately with PPS taking a summer break. But poetry is still happening all over the web. At my poetry blog, I recently published the poem I wrote for our last Blue Moon Reading open mic, but then never read.
When I wrote it I was thinking about bullying in preparation for our visit from Carol Todd, Amanda Todd’s Mom. I wrote the poem in the voice of a bullied person in the form of an ABC poem (abecedarium). But on that night I decided against reading it for a couple of reasons: I’ve never been bullied like Amanda had so I was afraid my imaginings would trivialize the real thing; and I didn’t want to hurt or offend our guest, who has gone through so much in the last nine months. (“Bullied Abecedarium” is here, in case you’re interested.)
Its publication on my blog brought out some interesting comments. One commenter sent me a link to the spoken word poem “To This Day” performed by Shane Koyczan, a poet who himself was bullied and writes about it. It’s below. The cool thing is Shane is one of our own (a Canadian). The uncool thing is that such bullying goes on here.
(Explore Shane’s website to find out more about this inspirational Canadian poet.)
Fraser Valley Poets Society 