The Poetry of the Winter Olympics

No I don't just mean the poetry, I mean the poetry. Up there at the opening ceremony! Acclaimed by that huge crowd and seen the world over, Canadian poet Shane L. Koyczan, the nicest guy anyone could wish to meet, a man who can reduce even the most hard-boiled old bag to tears with a line, as I know from personal experience, having mc'd his gig at a Queensland Poetry Festival!

Poetry - on the world stage !!

and you can hear that poem - right here


and here, from his website, at http://www.houseofparlance.com/koyczan/index.html is another small example of the reason why

6:59 AM

I’ve been told

that people in the army
do more by 7:00 am
than I do
in an entire day

but if I wake
at 6:59 am
and turn to you
to trace the outline of your lips
with mine
I will have done enough
and killed no one
in the process.

- Shane Koyczan, Visiting Hours

and there was kd lang, too singing Leonard Cohen, and suddenly I thought, yeah, all right, I DO belong in this world!

... and so I say to the vast majority who perplex and perturb my life day after day, in the immortal words of Shane L. Koyczan:

"stop it
write me a poem to make me happy"