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Boston Globe

Andrea Gibson, spoken-word artist who poignantly wrote about gender and a terminal diagnosis, dies at 49

Advertisement Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Their wife, Megan Falley, Since being diagnosed with terminal ovarian cancer in 2021, some of Andrea's work focused on how accepting mortality enriches life. 'The funniest thing through this time is that folks will interact with me as if I'm going through something that they're not going through,' really want people to know that they are.' Advertisement Andrea said that in facing death, 'you tap into the brevity of something and all of a sudden everything becomes more special,' and added that 'there is so much more time in a moment than there is in a decade.' 'Andrea was truly a rock star poet,' comedian and writer Tig Notaro, a longtime friend who is an executive producer on the documentary, The current poet laureate of Colorado, Andrea published several books, 'Renowned for thought-provoking poetry, advocacy for arts in education, and a unique ability to connect with the vast and diverse poetry lovers of Colorado, Andrea was truly one of a kind and will be deeply missed,' Advertisement In a 2017 essay for Out magazine, Andrea wrote about having struggled with the language of identity. 'For a while I reluctantly claimed bisexual . Then gay . Some years later I was proudly calling myself a dyke," they wrote. 'But when queer found its way to me I threw myself a pride parade, and when I learned the word genderqueer it felt like hearing someone say my name right for the first time in my life.' Born in 1975, 'I was from Calais, Maine/spelled like Calais, France/said like the rough patches on all the millworkers' hands,' Andrea wrote in 'How I Became a Poet.' Basketball success led to attending St. Joseph's College in Standish, Maine. 'The first time I came out I was 20 years old, studying creative writing at a very Catholic college,' Andrea wrote in the Out essay. 'When I say very I mean many of my teachers were monks and nuns and I was playing college basketball for — no joke — The Lady Monks.' The college went on to make 'some huge strides,' wrote Andrea, who was invited back to the campus a few months after the 2016 shootings at the Pulse LGBTQ nightclub in Orlando, Fla., 'to share all of my queerest poems with students and staff — monks and nuns included.' Advertisement Andrea's unflinching poetry addressed rape, the mistreatment of children, and numerous flashpoint issues. 'It's a political art form. You're trying to write to change minds and hearts,' Nevertheless, 'I remind myself of that night whenever the political climate of our world is breaking my heart,' Andrea wrote in Out of returning to read at St. Joseph's. 'It's important to notice when things change for the better. It's crucial to our spirits, imperative to the longevity of our activism, and is essential in our own becoming. I never want to stop becoming.' In one poem Andrea wrote: 'A difficult life is not less/worth living than a gentle one./Joy is simply easier to carry/than sorrow.' Moving to Colorado in the late 1990s, Andrea was immediately notable in what Notaro described as the state's community of activists, artists, and comedians. Seeing Andrea perform one night, 'I witnessed the pure essence of an old-school GENUINE rock star,' Notaro wrote on Instagram. 'I couldn't believe the roller coaster of emotion,' Notaro wrote. 'When Andrea stepped on stage, everyone stepped onto that ride with an audience of strangers, holding onto each other for dear life, each person taken aback by their own deep sobs of reflective tears, and then immediately into deep healing laughter.' According to Andrea's Instagram account, they died at 4:16 a.m. Monday 'surrounded by their wife, Meg, four ex-girlfriends, In addition to Andrea's wife and parents, survivors include a sister, Laura, whom Andrea wrote and spoke about. A complete list of survivors and plans for memorial gatherings were not immediately available. Advertisement My love, I was so wrong. Dying is the opposite of leaving. When I left my body, I did not go away. That portal of light was not a portal to elsewhere, but a portal to here. I am more here than I ever was before. I am more with you than I ever could have imagined. 'I think that the artist's primary job is to tell the truth, but I think that there is an additional job, which is to create hope, to inspire awe,' Andrea said in the April 2024 video. 'I think the poet's job is to remind us that we were born astonished. I have since learned that we are never, ever supposed to grow out of that.' Bryan Marquard can be reached at