POETRY OUT LOUD: Changing students, sparking compassion

By Gage Gramlick, 2018 and 2019 South Dakota Poetry Out Loud winner

At the heart of my Poetry Out Loud experience is connection. With the words. With the poets. With the students. Poetry Out Loud facilitates unity through education in the most miraculous way: compassion.

My junior year, I decided to partake. I thought it would be similar to oral interpretation: competitive, strategic, an excuse to get up and disseminate my thoughts. Upon my deep dive into poetry, however, I discovered a program that doesn’t merely prop students up, but also cultivates them, forces them to confront ideas they’ve always assumed true. I read “The Mortician in San Francisco” by Randall Mann and was consequently emerged in a history I never even knew existed. Furthermore, I connected to that history; I felt pain and pride through poetry. This tether to the abstract and the real, what we feel and what we know, is unique to poetry. The words and how they’re arranged allow us to enter into the mental landscape of the poet, to be unwittingly empathetic—apply this to history, social justice, politics, etc. and the product is compassion and unity.

The proof that POL is an incubator for boundless kindness is in the pudding, the students. I had the incredible opportunity to attend Nationals my junior and senior years; there, I encountered some of the most amazingly impassioned and patient kids I’ve ever met. It’s important to note that the awards for POL champs are generous to say the least. With a grand prize of $20,000, one might expect a hypercompetitive environment. Much to my surprise, however, my fellow competitors were not only supportive, they genuinely sought to learn from one another—technically speaking, sure, but also in philosophy and experience. They wanted to grow as people, with poetry as the starting point.

Gage Gramlick at the Poetry Out Loud Congressional Lunch (above), and performing at the National Finals (above right). Photos by James Kegley.

At the end of the day, I will always contend that POL is the best program in the U.S. Fundamentally, it changed me. Before POL, I thought I was going to be a doctor. A doctor! That would have been bad for me and my patients. It opened my eyes to who I am and to the many different ways we can all coexist. POL introduced me to the power of language as a catalyst for empathy-induced change. If we want to see a world connected instead of divided, open instead of closed, we need to encourage more kids to read poetry. POL is the perfect way to do just that.

Gage Gramlick won the South Dakota State Poetry Out Loud competition in 2018 and 2019, earning a trip to the POL National Finals in Washington, DC, both years. In 2018, he took top prize in the original spoken word category, Poetry Ourselves, at the National Finals. In 2019, he finished among the top nine in the nation, advancing to the final round and winning a $1,000 prize.