The young poet says that her greatest challenge is what made her who she is today
Amanda Gorman refuses to let anything hold her back.
The poet laureate who stunned America with her poem “The Hill We Climb,” at Joe Biden’s inauguration sat down with Oprah Winfrey to discuss how her disability has made her journey far from easy, per People.
“I was born early, along with my twin, and a lot of times, for infants, that can lead to learning delays,” said Gorman during an upcoming episode of Winfrey’s Apple TV+. show The Oprah Conversation.
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“One of my delays was in speech and speech pronunciation, and also the auditory processing issue just means I really struggle as an auditory learner.”
Winfrey gifted Gorman with the caged bird-shaped ring and a pair of earrings she wore to the inauguration.
“Amanda Gorman is a young woman who stepped into a moment in history with enormous grace and dignity,” said Winfrey in a statement. “I was enthralled by her youthful spirit from the first moment we met, and very much looked forward to hearing her unpack all that has happened to her the past few months.”
Gorman was diagnosed with a speech impediment and auditory processing disorder as a child. She says she struggled with pronouncing “sh”and “r.”
“Specifically ‘r’ because it is one of the most complex letters in the English alphabet,” she confesses. “That was something that I would struggle with until probably 20 years of age.”
“When you have a last name like Gorman, when you are writing poetry — all of the things that constitute my identity — when you go to a school like Harvard, which has two [of the letter r] in it, it leads to all these kinds of roadblocks.”
Source: Amanda Gorman says speech impediment ‘greatest strength’ during Oprah sit down
