Barely Amazing: Selected Poems

by Shane Koyczan

Barely Selected Poems is an anthology of some of Shane's most requested poems on tour. This collection spans decades and includes works from many of his books.




In this collection, Shane skillfully takes the readers on a trek through deserts of loneliness, labyrinths of loss, and meadows of healing. The landscapes of our emotions range from the perilous to the serene, and these poems become a companion, a confidant, a source of

solace, and a survival guide for the reader.




Shane's unique voice weaves humor and storytelling into his verses. With levity as a setup for power, each poem promises to take you on a

zipline of emotions, leaving you both laughing and reflecting on life's miracles. While the freefall through our emotions may at times feel like a hazard, Shane creates a place to land safely without having to sacrifice the impact created by their velocity. These works are flint and tinder, wrestling as a tag team against the cold and dark we sometimes find ourselves lost in. The works contained within do not tell us where to dig for the buried treasure of our hearts... they remind us that the treasure does in fact exist, and they lay bare what is amazing about what our hearts can endure.

Genres: Poetry

118 pages, Paperback

Published June 6, 2024

Reviews

[Anthony · Rating 5 out of 5]

I remember seeing the To this day video 10 somewhat odd years ago and instantly being hooked, I knew I needed to read more of his works and the more I read the more I just became enthralled and wrapped up in the heart and passion in all his poems and stories absolutely love Shane's works.

[Andrea · Rating 5 out of 5]

I drank in this book of poems like my life depended on it and the entire thing was an absolute delight. These poems really beg to be read aloud, which is, I think, how the author meant for them to be consumed. After I got through the entire book once, I went straight back to the beginning and read my favourites aloud to myself, which brings to light all of the internal rhymes and the rhythms of each piece. I strated putting sticky notes on all my favourite parts and by the end the book looked like a porcupine, more quills than flesh. In so many places I was caught by unexpectedly hilarious lines that caused me to gasp with joy. And then levity would give way to a deep and profound seriousness, circling grief and loss and love and pain. Every word in this collection is music. I borrowed this book from the library, but halfway through reading it I bought myself a copy for my e-reader so I can always have it with me. So many of the poems in here are love poems, but they never succumb to the saccharine. They are witty and expansive, blurring borders between romantic and platonic love, questioning the very borders of what love can look like. "I Like You Too" is perhaps one of the very best love poems I have ever read (or maybe I'm just so enamoured with it that I have forgotten all the other love poems). Koyczan also writes one of the most excellent lines about friendship that I have recently encountered:

You accept the weirdness in me like
I am giving you a snow globe.

You don't know where the fuck you're going to put it but
you know that I have been put in junk drawers before.

You know that I have been neighbours with broken
pens and orphaned beams of staples

that want nothing more than to keep it together
whatever it happens to be.

So you make space for me in your life.

You keep me on display
at your kitchen table.

Granted I am still surrounded by junk but we often hold
strange communion there in the heart of your peculiar palace.

I expect to read this whole collection over and over. With gratitude to the library for leaving it out on a featured shelf so that it called to me and asked me to bring it home.

[Bee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everything this man writes makes me cry and then comforts me back into smiling.

[Maria Freeman · Rating 2 out of 5]

Rated not because it’s bad, but because many of the poems were repeats from past books which was disappointing

[Luke Gorham · Rating 3 out of 5]

Uh, tough to condemn a working poet for a blatant money grab, but that's what this is... Recycled material, including both his best work and some of his iffier art.