To This Day: Poem Analysis

For this blog assignment, I have decided to analyze and discuss spoken word poem written and recited by my favorite artist, Shane Koyczan. I picked the poem “To This Day” (link at the bottom of this blog), due to its relation to module 3. This poem does not specifically refer to the social determinants of mental health; however, many are mentioned including social environments, physical environments, healthy child development, personal health practice and coping skills, social status, education, and support networks. The poem discusses the impacts of bullying on children and youth in today’s society. The poem touches on various situations of bullying and how these impacts can be catastrophic to ones mental health.

Bullying is a term that tends to be tossed around lightly in many circumstances. Bullying is not
In his poem “To This Day”, Shane Koyczan (2014) writes, “he was a broken branch grafted onto a different family tree adopted but not because his parents opted for a different destiny he was three when he became a mixed drink of one part left alone and two parts tragedy started therapy in 8th grade had a personality made up of tests and pills”. This quote refers to the social determinants of healthy child development, physical environment and support networks. Many people are born into a traumatic situation and these traumatic situations allow for an unhealthy childhood development. Without the proper support, and facing trauma at a young age one may develop mental illness. The most difficult part about developing a mental illness as a child or youth is the stereotypes and stigma that follows especially within the school systems. Those with mental illness may be labeled as an outcast or “weird” among their peers. Naturally, this does not improve ones mental health, unfortunately it makes things much