“He said all the things that I think about dyslexia, but have never said out loud.”

Our Dyslexia Buddy Network was fortunate to have Shawn Cork, a local college student, as a Champion Chat speaker twice. He spoke first to our families in the western suburbs and then to our families in the northern suburbs. He gave powerful testimony about the detrimental effect of a late dyslexia diagnosis; he wasn’t diagnosed with dyslexia until age 18. 

During the Champion Chats, he read two poems which he wrote, one before diagnosis and one after diagnosis. Afterwards, an eleven-year old girl told her mom, 

“He said all the things that I think about dyslexia, 

but have never said out loud.” 

Just let that percolate in your heads for a moment...that’s huge. 

How could we thank him, in a way that was a bit more meaningful than what we'd already given to him (which were an Award of Excellence ribbon, t-shirt, and Subway gift card)? And then it hit me - copyright his poems for him! Such an act of kindness from parents of kids with dyslexia would convey immense support. 

With his permission, our families contributed money to cover the copyright registration fees and I submitted the copyright registration claims in March 2015. In November 2015, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office completed the process. Congratulations, Shawn! You are a published author with two registered copyrights in your name!

Please read and share his poems. These poems speak for so many of our youth across the country.  Before diagnosis, poem entitled "Hate" and after diagnosis, poem entitled "Dyslexia". 

(Watch Shawn’s Champion Chat talk here. I was charged with this recording since our usual filmographer Luis Macias had a prior engagement. So, the quality is that of a home video camera, because...it was!)