Shane Koyzcan's Poem 'Atlantis'

Shane Koyczan’s poem “Atlantis” demonstrates the teller of the poem going through an existential path, at the beginning of the poem the teller begins to look for the lost city of Atlantis. The poem’s first two stanzas both ended with “I’m left looking for Atlantis” (Koyczan) which can also be interoperated into I’m looking for a purpose; this show that the speaker is metaphorically looking for – the lost city within himself. This being shown through a series of significant events in which he inquires why things are the way they are, why we deposit our faith in fear or why don’t aliens hide from us better. He also talks about faith and how faith can’t put a dent in fact and by saying that it shows – fact has killed faith and if we believe that “the universe is never ending” (Koyczan) then by that we are nothing not even a microbe, which demonstrates how little he thinks of himself. Shane Koyzcan’s poem displays that through of significant experiences we can start to learn our purpose he shows this having the experiences he goes make him question the world around him. Atlantis

can often be drawn as a spiral of a city and the symbolism that comes with spirals is evolution and holistic growth; which ties into the growth we see the speaker go through from the beginning to the end of the poem on his spiritual journey.

Atlantis can be seen as a spiritual goal for some – in the case that it is a mental program, a matrix, or a realm of possibility; which can be tied into the line “if we’re lucky, maybe we’re remembered along with the sunken city” (Koyczan) because the speaker thinks that when he finds the knowledge from Atlantis he can finally be remembered along with it and make something of his life.

The speaker has been looking for Atlantis for decades and all he knows so far is that it’s somewhere under the water which can mean that either he is not looking for it hard enough or it is the right time for him to find it. In the poem he explains that “We deposit our faith in fear” (Koyczan) which proves that we are scared of being out of the box so we drop our beliefs for facts; which may be the answer to why Atlantis has not been found yet because we have been shut down to believing it is nothing but a

myth.

Atlantis has also been claimed to be is the beginning and ending of all that is; which may be why the speaker wants to find it to find his true purpose and to gain knowledge and grow from the experience; that statement also explains to why people want to believe it is a myth because if it was true then that could may us question everything around us. This interferes with the fact that “We’re all shipwrecked on this idea that everything has to be explained” (Koyczan) because we find safety in the known and the unknown scares us – it makes us feel as though we have no control in our lives. He goes on to explain that sometimes we have to take risks and just believe; even though it can be a sacrifice to believe in something that can be fake that it’s a nice thought to have that someone could be willing to sacrifice themselves for us – just “to [tell] us that we’re beautiful” (Koyczan) and loved.
It is known that the speaker questions love and may not know how to show it; He explains that he can’t prove he has ever loved someone but despite that he is willing to try and see perfection in imperfection.