Senior Kendall Grimes & Leah Handelsman: Mentorship secures $1,000 prize at poetry nationals

BGA senior Kendall Grimes '22 and BGA English teacher and department chair Leah Handelsman sit together at a table on a normal Wednesday afternoon, discussing the nuances of words in a shorthand language that can only come from years of working together.

The two are preparing for their fourth year of Poetry Out Loud, a poetry recitation competition that first starts at a state level and then goes to the national level. Grimes was runner-up in last year’s national competition and is a three-time Tennessee state champion. She was unable to compete in 2020 due to COVID.

Started in 2005 by the National Endowment for the Arts, Poetry Out Loud has helped countless students learn more about poetry, public speaking skills, and literary history and contemporary life. It has reached more than 4.1 million students and 68,000 teachers from 17,000 schools and organizations.

The Poetry Out Loud website also hosts a poetry database, with more than 1,100 classic and contemporary poems. Students use this anthology to pick poems that meet different requirements, such as word count, subject matter, time period, and more. Each year that Handelsman and Grimes have worked together, Handelsman picks poems from the database, brings them to Grimes, and the two work together to find the three best picks for the year’s competition. Grimes then has under two months to prepare for the competition.

The two spend a lot of time on their own, Grimes reading the poems out loud, while Handelsman gives feedback, offering different tones and approaches to certain lines and words. Despite Handelsman being the teacher and Grimes the student, the two engage in lively discussion on how certain parts of the poems should be read, what they mean, and what they can change to make the recitation the best it can be.

“I’ve worked with Kendall more than I’ve worked with any other student at this school. Since her freshman year, we have just bonded over poetry. And it’s fun, it’s like our thing. We have it down,” Handelsman said.

Their poetry process began back in 2018, when Grimes performed a spoken word poem at the 2018 People of Color Conference. When Handelsman saw Grimes, she immediately realized that this was a student who needed to try Poetry Out Loud.

“Kendall is someone that when she speaks, everyone listens to her. And that’s a skill, to be someone who speaks and commands someone’s respect,” Handelsman said.

Grimes said that the feeling of commanding a room through reading poetry is something she truly loves.

“There is a very special feeling that comes with being able to stand on a stage and interact with so many people and say such important things. Having that power to communicate this message in a captivating way and knowing that people are actually getting something out of it, that’s so special,” Grimes said.

Also, Grimes sees her experience preparing for and competing in Poetry Out Loud as an integral part of her BGA journey.

"Some of the poems we’ve picked have been very relevant to my identity, my experience as a marginalized person at this school. And so I think without it, my time at the school probably would have been a little bit tougher,” Grimes said.“I’m really thankful for Ms. Handelsman helping me become a more well rounded student and a more resilient person.”

Handelsman thinks that with Kendall’s success, poetry has been brought more into discussion at BGA.

“We’re championing poetry,” Handelsman said.