Spoken Word Poetry

Anxiety Group By Catalina Ferro 
Nobody wants to go to help groups. Especially, in an Anxiety Group where you sit with the, "sweaty palm" people and the insomniacs. Catalina Ferro captures the racing of anxiety in her fast, wild performance. She explains how with anxiety comes insomnia and how some people can go nine days without sleep. As well as she says the line, "Sleep deprivation is a form of torture, you know, and I do this to myself." This speaks to me so much, as I am person with anxiety. To some people this seems like an exaggeration on what we go through but this is really true. We go through Melatonin, Benadryl, and later the heavy sleep medications that end with "pam". It is a escalator of higher doses and stronger drugs. Catalina captures all these perfectly and then at the end says, "These people who fight through every day like gladiators... just because they want so badly to live. To hold on. To love. Because you can’t be this afraid of losing everything if you don’t love everything first." This is a line that hits me so hard because it captures the very part of why we carry on. This poem is absolutely brilliant and show us how yes, "nobody wants to be here" but how everyone will keep fighting to get out of here.


To This Day By Shane Koyczan

"They have to be wrong". A powerful quote spoken by Shane Koyczan in his poem, To This Day about bullying and it's damaging effects.  He brings up the issues of bullying and how we must love ourselves. That the rhyme of, "stick and stones" is wrong because names do not "hurt less than a broken bone". The strong and dark mood of this poem opens the eyes of whomever reads or hears it. I specifically love when he says, "if you can't see anything beautiful about yourself, get a better mirror". We must see our true beauty and learn to take care of our-self. I deeply enjoyed this poem and the expressive way Shane Koyczan presented it.