The Bullied and Beautiful

The Ted website – found here – is a treasure trove of truly inspirational lectures and talks. I have posted a few here previously and here is another by poet Shane Koyczan, along with a short biog from the website and his wonderful poem about what it means to be bullied and how we heal and transcend the hurt and damage:

Shane Koyczan is a poet, author and musician. He performed at the opening ceremonies of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics, where an audience of more than 1 billion people worldwide heard his piece “We Are More.” He has also published three books: Stickboy, Our Deathbeds Will Be Thirsty and Visiting Hours, selected by both the Guardian and the Globe and Mail for their Best Books of the Year lists.

In 2012, Koyczan released a  full-length album with his band Shane Koyczan and the Short Story Long. The album includes the viral hit “To This Day,” which highlights the anguish of anyone who grew up feeling different or just a little bit alone. To bring visual life to this image-rich poem, Koyczan invited artists from around the world to contribute 20-second segments of animation to the project. Posted on YouTube on Feb. 19, 2013, by the close of the month the video had been viewed 6 million times.

http://www.ted.com/talks/shane_koyczan_to_this_day_for_the_bullied_and_beautiful.html