“I have two facts for you,
One, I’m six feet tall,
And two, love is the most vulnerable thing one will ever have,
And you must learn to hold on to it loosely,
So when it leaves, it won’t exit so painfully.”
As America’s Got Talent hopeful Brandon Leake uttered these words on stage, the crowd fell silent. These were the opening lines of his poem—his performance piece, an ode commemorating his younger sister’s death. When he was finished, the crowd remained subdued before bursting into applause. Judge Howie Mandel hit his golden buzzer, passing Brandon into the live shows, the first poet in history to accomplish this on AGT.
Brandon Leake was a high school English teacher who later became a college counselor. He bravely took the AGT stage to audition by performing a reading of his own poem. No one had ever performed poetry for the TV show, and its electrifying effect rocked the judges’ worlds. Sofia Vergara connected with Brandon, revealing she had also lost her sibling. Even infamously stern judge Simon Cowell gave nothing but accolades to the young poet, saying “What an amazing tribute. There’s something very, very special about you. Really.”
Check out Brandon Leake’s stirring performance below:
