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The art of Shane Koyczan

> ‘Shut Up and Say Something’ film review

Jerrison Oracion
Senior Columnist

 

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hane Koyczan is one of the most

famous slam poets in the world
since being featured in the opening
ceremony of the 2010 Vancouver Winter
Olympic Games. He got me interested
in slam poetry, a genre | learned about
in literature in secondary school.
Most of Koyczan’s material is from his
personal experiences, and we learn
about his poetry in the documentary
Shut Up and Say Something.

The documentary explores his

work process of how he writes and

performs his poems, and we see them
come to life through archival material
and new material specially made
for the documentary. The film also
shows Koyczan reuniting with his
biological father Len Koyczan, who
he had not seen ina very long time,
through the magic of Facebook.
Filmmaker Melanie Wood gives
us a personal look at Koyczan’s life ina
film that is as great as the documentary
about Lady Gaga, Gaga: Five Foot Two.
Shut Up and Say Something shows
more of Koyczan’s raw material. It
also shows that Koyczan is able to not
be too serious in life, and there are a
lot of funny moments from him.
The first few minutes of the
documentary show various people talking

including David Suzuki. In some of
Koyczan’s slam poetry, he adds music into
the performance. This made me think
that William Shatner might also be a slam
poet because he puts music in his poetic
material, though we could more accurately
label what Shatner does as sing talking.
The scenes where Koyczan sees Len
are very interesting because you expect
that they will show private moments of
Shane seeing his father for the first time.
Instead, Shane interviews Len about his
family and what Len was doing when
he wasn’t in Shane’s life. We then see
them doing various activities together
including going to a convenience store and
going fishing. What I learned from the
documentary is that Shane has Indigenous
heritage and that he likes to live in the
most rural town that he could find. In

about how they appreciate his poetry,

the scenes when Koyczan does his poetry
material, the audience reacts to make
it seem as if it is a live audience track.

During a screening of the
documentary at the Vancouver
International Film Festival this year,
both Shane and Len were there as special
guests. At the QSA in the screening,
Lasked both of them what was it like
seeing each other again. Len told me
that while Shane is his biological son,
he does not call him son and he calls
him Shane more often than son.

The documentary shows how
Koyczan made slam poetry cool and
presents an interesting way of seeing
a relative that you did not know much
about. Shut Up and Say Something airs
this spring on Knowledge Network.

Crowded bookshelf: Something old,

something new

> A recommendation for the ‘Old Man’s War’ series

Duncan Fingarson
Contributor

 

oday, John Scalzi is a multi-Hugo-

Award-winning author. In 2013,
his delightfully meta novel Redshirts
won the Hugo, and he could well be
considered one of the best currently
active sci-fi writers. But not so long
ago, he was a relative unknown, his
first published novel arriving in 2005.
That novel was Old Man's War.

Old Man’s War follows Colonial
Defence Force recruit John Perry, as
he joins the army on his 75th birthday.
The novel pays tribute to classic science
fiction, with the work of Robert A.
Heinlein specifically mentioned in the
acknowledgements, as well as a host
of classic military fiction tropes. The
character of Master Sergeant Antonio
Ruiz is perhaps the most obvious of
these, and the lampshade hanging
involved in his sections of the first
novel was especially amusing.

From boot camp through combat,
John Perry must come to terms with a
galaxy full of angry violent aliens that
all want to kill him. There are some
masterfully written combat scenes,
and a particularly good focus on the
bonds between fellow soldiers.

That said, however, the books aren’t a

testosterone-fuelled war epic. There's a lot
of deeper thought in there, and some very
relevant questions get asked, especially
later on in the series. When the first book
ends, John Perry gets left behind fora time
so that the second book (2006's The Ghost
Brigades) can focus on Jane Sagan, one of
the special forces soldiers introduced in
the first book. From here on out, things
get a little more introspective, as questions
are raised about the meaning of loyalty
and the implications of technology.

By the time of the third book in
the series, The Last Colony (2007), John
makes his return as the leader of a new
human colony. He's joined by Jane, and
the vast majority of the book focuses
around their struggle to survive. It’s the
most political of the three books, with the
ultimate message being a question of how
much can we really trust our governments.
In today’s world, that’s a question worth
asking and worth reading about.

In the interests of not spoiling too
much, this column has by necessity been
a little vague. I will say that the third book
ends on something of a hopeful note,
and that however grim the story might be
in places, there’s always a bit of humour
to lighten the tone. I’d recommend
Scalzi’s work to any fan of science fiction.
If you've never read anything by him
before, then this is a good place to start.

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