Poet Shane Koyczan Releases Anti-Bullying Poem With Animated Short Film

Spoken word poet Shane Koyczan pulled from his own adolescent years as the victim of bully’s to create a haunting poem and animated short film aimed directly at the culture of bullying.

The video, titled To This Day, details Koyczan’s scary childhood, which included many trying moments of perseverance in the face of bullies.

The relatable video addresses issues of name calling, harassment, and pain. The video also encourages everyone to confront bully’s and end their cycle of hatred and pain.

On the To This Day website Koyczan writes:

“My experiences with violence in schools still echo throughout my life but standing to face the problem has helped me in immeasurable ways.”

The website reads:

“To This Day Project is a project based on a spoken word poem written by Shane Koyczan called “To This Day”, to further explore the profound and lasting impact that bullying can have on an individual.

“Schools and families are in desperate need of proper tools to confront this problem. We can give them a starting point… A message that will have a far reaching and long lasting effect in confronting bullying.

“Animators and motion artists brought their unique styles to 20 second segments that will thread into one fluid voice.

“This collaborative volunteer effort will demonstrate what a community of caring individuals are capable of when they come together.”

Here is the To This Day video in its entirety:

[iframe width=”560? height=”315? src=”http://www.youtube.com/embed/ltun92DfnPY” frameborder=”0? allowfullscreen]

Published on February 19 to YouTube, the video has already received more than 45,000 pageviews. The YouTube posted video is receiving a mix of encourage and disparaging comments from viewers.