Laurita Gorman almost never got called up to read her poem in front of the audience.

She signed up for her first poetry slam and spent the whole night waiting to hear her name — the host had forgotten to add her to the list. She got up anyway. And wouldn’t you know it, placed second. That accident put her in the finals, and by the end of that year she was reading a poem about a woman named Laken Riley to a room that went completely silent.

Laurita is a Canadian-born poet and therapist living in Australia. A poet from an early age, she filled journal after journal. In her twenties, she started taking those journals into therapy sessions to figure out what she'd actually been trying to say. Life eventually stopped her in her tracks and pushed her back toward performing — and within a year she was standing on the Sydney Opera House stage.

We get into what it actually took to go from writing privately to reading in front of strangers. Why she stopped trying to be "nice" and started saying the true thing instead. What it felt like the night a room full of women grabbed her arm without saying a word. And why she believes a poem can do something years of talking can't.

If you've ever had something true stuck in your throat you didn't know how to say — this one's for you.

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Men –– Come train with us in The UNcivilized Nation

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