How a 'Hamilton' song helped Amanda Gorman overcome a speech impediment

[Gothmog]

This young lady is amazing. She was/is a stutter and overcame her speech impediment with the help of Hamilton

Link to tweet

You wouldn't know it from her commanding delivery at the inauguration, but up until a few years ago, National Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman struggled to overcome speech impediment.

For much of her life, including when she was still an undergraduate at Harvard, Gorman had trouble pronouncing the letter "R."
To practice saying the letter, she'd listen on repeat to one song she said was "packed with 'R's'" -- "Aaron Burr, Sir" from Lin-Manuel Miranda's historical opus, "Hamilton."

"I would try to keep up with Leslie Odom Jr. (who played Burr in the original Broadway cast) as he's, you know, doing this amazing rap," Gorman told CNN's Anderson Cooper on Wednesday, following her triumphant inaugural performance. "I would say, if I can train myself to do this song, then I can train myself to say this letter."

[Hugin]

1. A wonderful story.

I very much enjoyed her recitation at the Inauguration.

[littlemissmartypants]

2. Sorry for butting in, Gothmog, but Ms. Gorman was never a stutterer.

She has a speech articulation disorder involving the /r/ sound. She has used her penchant for the spoken word to essentially serve as her own speech pathologist and has come a long way toward correcting her misarticulations becoming a proficient spoken word artist. She has never been a stutterer.

❤ lmsp

[Gothmog]

6. Amanda Gorman was/is a stutter

I used to stutter. This is a very personal issue for me. I met Joe Biden at two fundraisers in 2019 (pre covid) and at one fundraiser, we discussed stuttering. I got a Biden hug and Joe told me about the 20+ young people with stutters he keeps in contact with. I loved Amanda Gorman's poem and I just found out that she is or was a stutter (the stutter never goes away entirely).
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/01/joe-biden-inauguration-speech-stutter.html?via=rss_socialflow_twitter

Link to tweet

Joe Biden was not the only one at this inauguration to understand how hard-won delivering one’s own words can be. Amanda Gorman, the poet laureate who cracked the inauguration ceremony into a million pieces with her poem, was also a child who overcame a speech impediment, by writing poems. Speaking to NPR about her own stutter, she mentioned one of her predecessors, Maya Angelou, who also delivered an inaugural poem and was mute as a child. “I think there is a real history of orators who have had to struggle, a type of imposed voicelessness, you know, having that stage at inauguration,” she said. “So it’s really special for me.” Gorman’s voice was perhaps the most poignant symbol for millions and millions of Americans who have been struggling to speak truth in the face of years of dark, pixelated nonsense.

This young lady is an amazing person

[littlemissmartypants]

7. Please rethink your stance on this.

She is and was not a stutterer. Slate erroneously quotes the NPR interview. Here are the words from the NPR interview which is referenced by Slate, "Like Biden, who has spoken openly about having stuttered as a child, Gorman grew up with a childhood speech impediment of her own. She had difficulty saying certain letters of the alphabet — the letter R was especially tough — which caused her to have to constantly "self-edit and self-police."

Slate comes to an erroneous conclusion from the NPR interview which at no time states she is or was a stutterer. Here's the erroneous conclusion from Slate, "Speaking to NPR about her own stutter, she mentioned..."If you read the interview there is never any mention of her being a stutterer. Those are the facts.

Furthermore, I have information from an irrefutable source with personal knowledge on the subject that the disorder in question, is and has Never Been stutterering.

Articulation disorders and fluency disorders, like stuttering, are two very different things. Confusing the two, while never minimizing the difficulty that having a communication disorder presents, denies that they are identified and defined by exceptionally different characteristics in the patterns of speech and they should never be misrepresented as being the same thing.

I am hopeful that you have overcome your stuttering and glad that you have found a kindred spirit in Ms. Gorman as a fellow sufferer of a communication disorder but the two problems, speech articulation and stuttering, will never be the same thing.

Clarification of this in no way detracts from the fact that she and you are amazing people, for many reasons and especially, for overcoming very personal struggles as individuals with communication challenges.

❤ lmsp

[abqtommy]

3. Since we're discussing stuttering, misarticulation speech impediments and a song/rap from Hamilton

I'm reminded that Mel Tillis, the country music singer, is known to be a stutterer when speaking but never
stutters while he's singing! My own older sister received speech therapy in grade school for her difficulty pronouncing the letter "r" and eventually overcame it. Her difficulty prompted much teasing at school and it was a good thing that she beat it. (So many people are thoughtless and cruel.)

I'm not overly concerned or disappointed that Amanda Gorman is not a stutterer. She has overcome a
disability and gained poise and self-confidence much to the benefit of herself and all the rest of us too.

[malaise]

4. I watched her interview with Anderson

She is refreshing

[Hugin]

5. Yes, refreshed is a good word to describe the feelings I had listening to her speak.

I was almost perky.

[littlemissmartypants]

8. A correction has been made by SLATE.

Correction, Jan. 25, 2021: Due to an editing error, the original version of this piece stated that Amanda Gorman overcame a stutter. The speech impediment Gorman overcame was dropping letters.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/01/joe-biden-inauguration-speech-stutter.html

❤lmsp