Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Alright, so let's start with your name, your age and where you're from.
Umm, my name is Andrea Gibson. I'm thirty eight years old and wow, that sounds old saying
it out loud, and wise. And I'm from Calais, Maine.
So what do you do for a living, in your own words, how would you define it?
I have a, I have a lot of feelings out loud on stage. I write poems and I travel around
and read them to people. Tell us a little about how you grew up.
Um, depending on the day I could say that really differently. I grew up in a really
small town in the woods in northern Maine in a working class town, and I spent all my
days running around in the woods and building tree houses and skateboarding and, um not
in the woods, I didn't skateboard in the woods. And getting dirty, I'd always come home covered
in dirt and I looked exactly like I look now. I have the same haircut, I was a little bit
more style-y of a dresser. I could iron when I was really young. I pressed all my shirts
and buttoned them all the way up. Oops, I'm playing with the microphone now but um, yea
that was growing up young and then it got a little harder as I got into junior high
and um, but I was really into basketball and sports and um, and I wrote stories. That's
sort of my life in the woods playing basketball and writing stories.
So through writing stories, where did you discover this passion for spoken word?
Well I, I went to college mainly to play basketball, like that's why I wanted to go to college
and I ended up studying creative writing in college although I never thought - my family
was actually very encouraging of any, any sort of anything I was doing artistically.
I liked to draw and paint and write and they were really encouraging of that. But I was
never told I could grow up and be an artist you know, but I studied creative writing in
college, I had terrible stage fright so I never thought I would ever get on a stage
and perform. And then I moved, I moved from Maine to New Orleans after college and then
I moved, I moved to Colorado um, from New Orleans so I could I stop drinking beer at
10 am. And um, when I got to Colorado I discovered the Denver poetry slam scene and I fell in
love with it and it took me a few weeks to dare myself to get up on stage and I finally
did it and I was so nervous. And I'm you know, 14 years later and I'm still so nervous, just
as nervous probably. That's why I stopped reading off of paper because my hands would
shake so much when I was holding the paper. Um, but yea that's when um, that's when I
got into poetry. And when would you say when your career started
picking up? Well I got involved with the Denver slam team,
and on the Denver poetry slam team we would go to the national competitions and you know
and different parts of the country and after getting some exposure to poets in different
areas of the country I would get some invitations to perform in different places. The first
place I got invited to perform at Estate was in New York City, and I think that they were
paying me fifty dollars to perform and so I bought a $200 plane to it. I think I actually
borrowed the money from my friend to get a $200 plane ticket to go because I was so excited
to get an invitation at Estate to perform and um, and then the first tour that I booked
with her friend with her friend. You know, we were sleeping on dorm floors and with no
pillows and that was actually how it was the first few years. But then from there, going
to coffee shops to you know, colleges and then venues and stuff.
Yea in coffee shops lots of stuff happens. Do you remember your first performance?
My first performance in, out of town or in first performance in Colorado? Like my first
invited performance possibly, is that what you mean?
Yea. The first one I did, um the first one I did
that I was invited to was at the Bowery Poetry Club in um, New York City. I was so nervous
because it was New York City and um, I was shaking, gosh I shaking so bad. I, I think
I spent the whole two hours before the performance just standing in the bathroom stall not daring
to look at anybody. But I was so excited after it was over and I was you know, usually it
takes me the first poem, the first poem to stop shaking and I'm okay. But, I um, I think
that was the first one. New York, wow. I know it, I know how nerve-wracking
that can be. Yea, it's just being in the city everything's
so tall and fast and when you don't live there it's so hard to get around but it's so exciting
you know, you just, you have butterflies the whole time you're there.
The hype of it. Yea.
And, so you're here to do a workshop, so what do you, what do you do in a workshop?
I'm not here to do a workshop actually. What are you here to do?
I'm doing a show. You're doing a show. We're under the impression
that you were doing a workshop. Are you serious?
Yea no, I did a workshop at Boston University the other night. Yea, and then tonight I'm
doing a show. I hope I'm doing a show. I'm not prepared for a workshop!
Show's great, I'd love to see another show. No yea, a show.
So you prefer shows over workshops? I do yea, for sure. Because I started writing
poetry because I couldn't express myself in conversation, things like this are really
intimidating to me because I have to explain and talk about things and I started writing
things down because I had so much I was feeling and so much I was you know, thinking and whenever
I tried to talk to somebody about it, it would never come out right and the, the thing about
writing is I get to pick. You know, I could spend two hours on, on one sentence and get
it how I want it. So it's your outlet.
Yea, so workshops are intimidating because I have to you know, I have to put things into,
I have to say things on the spot without a script and even when I'm talking to you know,
somebody that I bump into in a hallway or a store and just, it's nerve-wracking for
me. I have really, I have a lot of social anxiety. Yea, and fear of public speaking,
so. That's kind of interesting. Um, so I'm gonna
ask you here if you would feel comfortable talking about your sexuality on camera?
What part of my sexuality? My queerness? Or how exactly I have sex?
Um, how your your queerness, how your queerness -
My particular - - plays a role in your career and I know your
career so Right, right right right. Um, so my queerness.
Uh, okay so you're not asking me about specific yea okay great. Um, you know I think that's
changed over the years. I mean, I think it, when I first got into spoken word I, I had
so much fire inside of me, so much I wanted to say about being *** because I had, I
didn't have a great coming out experience. It was a really hard adjustment for my family
and in the beginning I thought it was a deal breaker. Um, for several years it was, it
was just, it was one of the most painful things I, I had gone through. And um, and over the
years my, you know, my family and I have, I think there's been a lot of healing that
has happened around that and we've come out, I guess, at the other end of it with still
some work to do. Um, but, but that was the first stuff that I was writing about in spoken
word and I was just screaming about it and um, and I guess you would say it, it's what
got me into the art form and most of what I was writing about in the beginning. And
I think I took some time, I, I've always written, you know I've always written love poems. I
don't know if I've always stuck to, you know, political themes of you know, queerness but
I've come back around to that more in the last couple of years and, how do I say this,
I was talking to a friend recently about just poetry and activism and um, and I think that
my activist heart is, is inspiring my work now maybe even more so than the poetry of
it. I'm more invested in, in um, I don't know how people leave a show and what they feel
when they're leaving and if, if they feel better. I worked with a group called Vox Feminista
for about a decade and their motto was "to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortble."
And um, I think I go into every show feeling that way. So I don't know if I'm answering
your question at all, I just know I've been, I've been really passionate about it lately,
specifically *** youth and um you know, mental health, mental illness and just wanting
to um, just wanting to write things that help out.
So, have you feel like it's created a tighter bond you and the LGBTQ community?
Well I, I, I have more of a sense now more than ever when I'm on stage that um, that
I'm not the only one up there and I think that I'm listening more when I'm writing than
I ever have and I'm listening for what's not being said and I never feel like it's just
me up there talking, god that would be boring. I, I just, spoken word always feels like a
conversation to me and um, and the audiences give so much and there's so much energy coming
from the audience and um, and yea, I just think that I'm trying to pay attention and
I'm constantly inspired by, by people that are in the shows, and mostly how open-hearted
people come to a show, and just how open-hearted they are when they show up and, yea.
So what else inspires you in that way? What else inspires me in that way?
Throughout your life? Throughout my life. I get that question a
lot. What inspires me? And I'm always inclined to say everything but I guess what I mean
is everything I pay attention to. I think anything that you pay any attention to is,
is a story I guess worth telling. Like the idea that everything that's happening around
you is art and it's just the recording of it, so mostly all art is plagiarism of you
know, the beauty that just is, or the, maybe the pain that just is, that sort of reshaping
into beauty. I guess. Do you have any specific influences, like
favorite authors? Oh, I have so many. You know, I know this,
what's wild is a lot of my, a lot of my inspiration comes from other spoken word artists and um,
just people that I just admire so much and they're work and Shira Ehrlichman who is actually
the musician that opened the show last night, her poetry is, she's one of my favorite poets
in the world and I mean I could just list names. Rachel McGibbons, Inez Marcheani, Patricia
Smith, there's so many people. Now, we were really interested in your creative
process. Oh yea?
Yea. What part are you interested in?
Well we want to know how you pick which poems you're going to perform since you've got quite
the amount. I have so many. You know I, I was doing an
event the other night, or two events, so I realized I had to do two shows in one night
and um, I, I heard through the grapevine that a lot of people were coming, I don't I've
ever said that phrase before, through the grapevine, but I heard a lot of people were
coming to one show and then coming to another and so I was trying to figure out if I could
do two entirely separate shows for them and I realized that I had 28 poems memorized and
if you think that each of them are about 4 minutes long or so that's a lot of time. So,
how I pick is um, I can never decide what I'm reading until I get to a venue and then
I can start to narrow it down once I see the space and you know, feel out the energy of
the space and then once people start coming in, I sort of um, I sort of just try to tap
in and tap in to my own self and see what I can read authentically and honestly because
you can only imagine I'm reading a lot of these poems over and over and over again and
there's nothing worse than spoken word that's not read honestly. And so I have to be able
to feel whatever I'm reading that night, which is why if somebody hollers out you know, a
request I have to sort of sit with it in my body and I can read it truthfully, and if
I can, I'll typically read it, yea. But sometimes I can't. So yea it's just sorting out what
I can do honestly and what I'm feeling that night.
What's your favorite thing about performing? Oh wow, I mean it's so scary to me that that's
an interesting question let's see. You know probably just the connection. I think that
we all create our safety in different ways and I, I feel most safe when I'm feeling connected.
And probably my favorite thing is if there's, you know, one person in the audience who's
face is just, it's getting me through the whole show, it's like a porch light, and um,
and those moments when I, I feel connected. That's, that's the best thing about it, yea.
Anything funny every happen? Oh my god, anything funny. Well things funny
happen all the time. There was one time that I accidentally burped in the middle of a really
serious poem. I think somebody got that and put it on youtube, actually. I hope that you
don't find it. That would be bad if you did. If what? Yea, so I burped one time in the
middle of a poem. Um, there have been so many things I can't believe I can't think of them
on the spot. You mean on stage? You know once I was doing a show, once I was, I don't know
if this is funny or gross, this is probably a little bit of both, but once I was doing
a show in, in New York City and we were um, we were in a traffic jam trying to get there
so we were in the car for you know, three hours trying to get 15 minutes and, and I
had to go to the bathroom really bad and I couldn't get out of the car and go. So I peed
in a Nalgene bottle and my friend Katie Worsing who's another poet and I were doing the show
together and we thought it would be great if we brought the Naglene bottle full of pee
onto stage to you know, we thought it was funny to show the people in New York um, where
we went to the bathroom. And um, they did not think it was funny at all, they were totally
disgusted by us, so that was another funny thing that happened. Mostly um, most of it
just comes down to people being appalled by things. I'll try to remember more later.
Now a lot of your pieces involve love with the same process of self discovery. Do you
feel like this parallel has helped you grow as an artist?
Love with self discovery, has that helped me grow? That's a really great way of putting
it because I've been asked before why I can still read love poems about people that I'm
no longer with and I think, I think that that is a lot of the love poems that I've written
have been you know, searching for myself within them, and searching for myself within the
relationship and just learning more about, I don't think that we learn, I don't think
we learn anywhere the way that we learn in relationship with other people. So I guess
yea that's most of my life's education is come from relationships. But um, in terms
of self discovery or learning I think that I often, I, I, it's like I never write down
what I know, I'm writing down to figure out, sort of like the equation is in the poem.
And hopefully I land in place of more questions than answers. I think answers are sort of
useless and a lot of um, I just want to, I just want to get to the end of my life and
be full of questions. I think the more that I wonder the more that um, every year of my
life I know that I, I know less than I did the year before and I hope I get to the end
of it and know nothing. And I'll be wise. Do you think, so do you think that by writing
about these relationships it's helped you like, discover aspects that you didn't see
before or helped you come to terms with the outcome?
Like you mean make peace with the devastating heart wrenching break up?
Yes. Last night I was talking to somebody that
told me they spent 3 days listening to a love poem I have called Photograph on repeat and
I thought, how do you do that? It's so sad. It's so sad. Um make peace, I, yea. Yea definitely
it's been healing I mean writing is always healing for me, and um, it's healing for me
to read poetry and to hear other people's poems and, and writing definitely has, I mean,
literally saved my life and for certain, you know, through break ups, sometimes it feels
like it's the only thing that keeps me, has kept me from sinking, for sure, yea. It's
funny, my publisher, I was telling him that I wanted to write a book of just love, you
know I wanted to put out a book of just love poems and he said well that's not really what
you're known for, you know, that would be sort of, it would, it would be it would be
weird for you to do that because you're sort of like a political poet. He's like I think
it would be interesting in a few years and I don't, I didn't know that I agreed with
him, I thought that um, I thought that I wrote more love poems than anything. I feel like
I write more about love than any other topic. I would agree. I'd agree you could find it
Oh, well I think about that all the time because you know, I'm always walking through the world
wondering you know, what, what is, what is left, like what's unspoken. Tara Hardy who
is a poet from Seattle years ago told me that I had to start writing the poems that I was
terrified to write and so I every time I write a poem now I think am I terrified to write
this and if I'm not terrified then I feel like I shouldn't bother writing it. Tell me
your question again I just, I just. If you were to tell anything to those lovers.
The lovers. I learned this from my therapist. Yea, this is, I, I felt like this is the handiest
thing ever, but it's the idea that um, so we, so we think that we, we think that we
meet someone and we're blinded by love and we're just enamored with them, that's why
it's so intense in the beginning and then we get to know them and we realize as things
start to fall apart, we think it's a getting, we got to know them and didn't really like
them. And my therapist believes that in the beginning we're actually seeing that true
person and that person is seeing our true selves and what we do over time is just bury
each other with our own *** and our own problems and our own history and we stop being
able to see them. So one of the things that I have learned in just growing through you
know, different relationships in my life is that if I start to feel like I'm not loving
well or I'm not seeing the other person or, or I, or I start to feel like maybe I don't
like her as much, I'm typically I'm just starting to bury somebody in my *** and so just
be to catch myself and you know, noticing my *** because there's a lot of it. We
all have a lot of ***. And you mentioned before that you hate public
speaking - Yea -
- so before you were - Well I don't know if that's the best thing,
I don't hate it, I'm terrified of it, yea, terrified of public speaking, for sure.
Big difference. So, did you originally write your poems not as spoken word or were you
always writing them as spoken word? Um, and were you always performing them, or was it
like a in the bedroom to the mirror kind of a thing for awhile?
So, do you mean before I, before I got in to reading my poems out loud or do you mean
now? Yea.
Um, nope before I was writing them on paper and then when I discovered spoken word, I'd
just started writing out loud so I didn't write on paper anymore. So my writing process
involves me running around my house, screaming and whispering and jumping on the couch and
picking up my dog and um, you know, pounding the floor and doing somersaults and stuff
like that. And I know the sound of a poem and I know what I'm, the feel of it and the
subject before I know the words and so I'm saying all this stuff outside, out loud that
isn't actually words and then I fill in the words later once I have the sound and the
emotion and so I feel like um, the sound of something is primary to me. More like maybe
writing a song. So if you ever were to walk in on me while I'm doing it I'd be really
embarrassed, um you probably would be embarrassed for me. But, so yea, now since I first got
in, since you know I guess it's been 13 years now, I, I never write anything without thinking
about, without it being sound based and um, so it's always something that lives out loud.
I don't ever practice things, um, out loud. I only practice, you know, by myself, like
I've never done any of the practicing in the mirror. And I've been told that I should because
sometimes I can be a bit awkward on stage but I feel like that would just make it not
authentic. So I don't practice it, I practice it when I, when I have a piece and I'll just
get up on stage and for the first five times I read it it will just be awkward and then
it will get less awkward and then I'll get comfortable with it.
And you were telling us before about some activism work. So um, could you tell us a
little about the stay here with me project? Yea, stay here with me. Um, we started it
this summer and basically, so I guess that's like 7 months ago, but I wrote the poem, I
don't even know what the title of it is, I don't know if it's called the madness face
or the nutritionist because I never really titled it and folks have called it different
things so um, it's a poem about um, you know, struggling to want to stay alive and, and
what to do when that's the case and so I read it for the first time two years ago and my
friend Kelsey Gibb was with me when I, when I read it for the first time and then she
was traveling with me a bit and traveled with me all these, you know these past 7 months
and we were having conversations with tons of people every night after shows who were,
you know, struggling to want to stay alive and um, and we wanted to create an online
project that was supporting people and living and wanting to live and um it's an art focused
site that basically is just trying to um, keep, inspire people to stay and inspire them
to want to stay and finding resources and, and finding other people who are going through
similar things. Then there's a part of the site that's called Your Stories and that's
our favorite part and it's um, basically people write in and share their stories, and their
stories are helping other people and then other people share their stories and just
reminding each other that um, that they're not alone. I think that one of the, the heaviest
things is to feel like you are all alone in what you're going through and it's always
comforting to know that other people are feeling what you're feeling and so that's what the
site's about. Yea, it's stayherewithme.com, yea we're really excited about it and there's
just so many amazing people involved in it and it's really inspiring.
You finally hit rock bottom so you start hitting back.
Yea. Yea. I know this is going to be hard -
- this question? This question
You're going to ask me a hard question? I'm asking you a hard question.
Okay. I'm so sorry.
No, that's okay. What's your favorite poem?
Oh man. That's so easy. If I can pick a poem by somebody else, can I?
Yea. No, I don't have a favorite poem. I don't
have a favorite poem. Do you mean a poem by somebody else or a poem I've written?
I could ask you both questions or I could ask you one.
Okay ask me one. Okay. Um, what's your favorite people you've
ever written? See, my favorite poem is always the last poem
that I wrote so whatever the last poem is that I wrote would be my favorite. Um, the
last poem I wrote is a poem that nobody's heard, it's called Willy Knows Everything.
That's it, it's called Willy Knows Everything, um but yea, I just always feel most connected
with the one that I just wrote and I don't think that I have a general favorite one.
I have poems that I, I never feel comfortable leaving a show without reading and I don't
know if that necessarily means that they're my favorite or I just, for me, um, socially
they're the ones are, that I'm feeling most passionate about.
So do you consider yourself a positive person generally?
That's so funny. My new year's resolution was to try to be more positive. I tend to
go to worry really quickly and so I'm trying to notice when I start to worry and go to
um, and go to you know, try to reroute. I think the only thing that we have control
over in this world is where we put our attention so I'm trying to put my attention in different,
in more positive places. But positive person. I don't, I don't think, I don't think that
my close friends would define me as such but I'm definitely not a negative person. I think
that I worry a lot, I'm anxious a lot, I get sad really easily, but I also am really excitable.
I think that I, I spend a lot of time in my seven year old brain and so, and I get lit
up really easily and inspired easily and when I'm around people who are doing you know,
amazing stuff then it's really um you know my heart gets excited quickly.
So these are a few questions just going off some of your work. Just noticing some trends,
um, so the term god is used frequently throughout a lot of your pieces so I was wondering your
definition of god? My definition of god. Wow that's a big one.
What god means to you. Well I, I grew up in the baptist church and
then I went to a catholic college so it was always, you know it was always, always around
me. Um, and I think that my use of god in all my poems, I think that I think I mention
Jesus in probably 50 percent of my poems and I, that mostly comes from where I've come
from, and sort of a reclaiming of that. God, when I think of god for myself, I, I think
about um, the thing that connects us all, whatever that is. The place where we are,
are no different from each other. And um, yea I think of god as love. I know that's
cliche but that's how I think of god, as creativity, and love and whatever unites us all and so
whenever I say god that's what I'm meaning, yea.
And referencing a few of your poem but more specifically your poem Andrew, would you consider
yourself an advocate of kind of smashing the gender binary?
Absolutely! Yes. You can title this whole thing advocate for smashing the gender binary,
for sure, yea. So, and you're very real, like you're very
here. Do you, when you present yourself do you try, is that a conscious thing for you
to make sure that you are performing as 100 percent yourself, do you want to be on that
level with your audience? Well definitely because um, so I learned probably
a couple of years ago because I was so scared on stage all, all the time, and um, there
was, I realized what was so scary about being scared on stage was that I was trying to hide
it from the audience and there was this one show where I gave myself permission to, to
stop hiding that I was terrified and I would walk up on stage after that and if I felt
terrified I would say it to the audience and through the whole show, whatever I felt, and,
and still now if I'm, if I'm, if I'm feeling something or if I, I get insecure about something
or I get really excited about something, I just gave myself permission to not hide whatever
was going on with me. And it's wild that I would have to do that because you would think
that I was just you know, my poems, I was just, I was just spilling everything but um,
spilling everything to me means showing up with what, whatever you're coming to you know,
so I could have a day that is, I mean I've got, I've gotten up on stage on days that
I've you know, gotten broken up with, and um, to get up there and try to perform through
that is just, just crap. I've never even liked the word performance for, for spoken word
or at least my relationship with spoken word because I feel like you're just getting up
there and, and you know, telling the truth and so for me that means, you know, saying
I'm scared when I'm scared or I'm sad when I'm sad, or I'm furious about something and
just being whatever I feel. And that makes me feel safer up there, to know that I don't
have to put on a show. It's healthy, it's honest.
Yea. And um, so performing's like a full body experience
for you then. Yea. Well I notice that when I'm, I'm really
in a nervous state I'm nowhere, I'm like, a million miles outside of my body, so yea,
just trying to get into my body and being present um, is definitely important. It's
the most important thing probably. This is my favorite question.
Oh. Are you ready?
I can't wait. What do you do when a doctor says you feel
too much? Well, when that particular doctor told me
that I feel too much I threw a tantrum. Then I felt a million times more than he had ever,
um I threw a tantrum and I um you know I think, *** you. And I also at the time honestly
I was like maybe that's true because I'm in so much pain all the time but the concept
of feeling too much, was like, at that point I was just going through, I mean I was going
through *** in my life that it would make sense that you were feeling you know, a lot
of sadness a lot and I don't even think it ever has to make sense, but the idea of um,
we just culturally aren't set up to accept um you know, or to celebrate all of that feeling
you know, we're conditioned to say, oh when somebody asks you how you are to just say
you know I'm fine, instead of you know the checkout clerk at the grocery store asks you
how you are and you just vent and just say this day is terrible you know my heart is
just crumbling, my jaw is just so tense because I'm so mad you know. You never, nobody ever
says that and I feel like god if we would just get, I don't know, more routed in loving
all that is you know that we're feeling and that's hard to do when you're feeling miserable.
But um, when a doctor says, yea. I've um, I think that at this year in my life was the
year that I've made the most peace with all that I feel and just sort of welcoming it
and knowing that anything I feel is tolerable if I'm not fighting against it, because you
know if I can just, even feeling a lot of fear, if I can welcome the fear and not be
pushing against it, it's almost the pushing against it that's the painful part. Even with
sadness, the trying to push the grief away is actually more painful than, than just welcoming
and the grief and um, so yea, I'm just trying to make space for all that I feel. And that's
a thing that you know, I have more openness to each year and I think that when I wrote
that line, and that was years ago, I was still, I was still struggling with how much I felt
um, but that's the other wonderful thing about being able to do these shows because every
night I'm meeting all these people that are feeling, you know, feel too much too and it's
like great, let's all feel too much together. Yea, and it's just, there's just this, you
know it's like a welcome mat in it and um, yea, so it's, yea.
That was the last question. Great.