She overcame speech impediments to be a spoken word poet
Just like President-elect Biden and her idol Maya Angelou, Gorman was born with a speech impediment. According to understood.org, Gorman has speech articulation issues that make it difficult for her to pronounce particular words and sounds. She was also diagnosed with an auditory processing disorder in kindergarten.
She struggled to mention words like poetry, earth and girl. “But I don’t look at my disability as a weakness,” said Gorman. “It’s made me the performer that I am and the storyteller that I strive to be.
“When you have to teach yourself how to say sounds when you have to be highly concerned about pronunciation, it gives you a certain awareness of sonics, of the auditory experience,” she told LA Times.
