Lang's cover of "Hallelujah" was one of my highlights of the ceremonies, and Koyczan did a great job as well. It must be a tricky task to write and read a poem that has to be "safe" and powerful all at once, and it's unfair to expect a literary masterpiece to result from such a situation. Compared to the other OMG, a poem? moment of late, Elizabeth Alexander's inaugural poem for Barak Obama, Koyczan's was easily the better performance. If you didn't see it yesterday, there's a spliced together version of Koyczan performing the poem here. [UPDATE: A clip from the ceremonies themselves here - thanks to The Drive is Alive for the link!]
It was especially nice to see some literary content considering the dearth of it during the "Cultural Olympiad" - one of Brad Cran's concerns in his recent, and much-ballyhooed, blog post.
And with Koyczan promoting Vancouver slam poetry to the world, I can only imagine how popular the next few slams at Cafe Deux Soleils will be. Commercial Drive will be crazy! Oh wait, it already is...
Others may force the rerouting of the torch relay, too, but no one does it with the style (and barbed wire) of the Drive!
P.S. GOOOOOO SNOW LEOPARD!!!!
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