Andrea Gibson: Poetry as Medicine
Mallory Wallace-Usry | September 16, 2025
What part of your life’s record is skipping?
What wound is on repeat?
Have you done everything you can
to break out of that groove?
Andrea Gibson
Around campus, the trees are lazing into the yellows and reds of fall, and as of Sunday, September 14, two months will have passed since the death of American poet Andrea Gibson.
At 49 years old, they passed after a four-year-long battle with ovarian cancer, surrounded by their wife, ex-lovers, friends and family in their home in Boulder, Colo..
Gibson first gained recognition for their spoken-word poetry in the early 2000s. Freshly out of college, they performed with an intensity that often brought audience members to tears. Their early work centered around social issues, activism and their experience being openly queer. Performed in cafes and on college campuses, Gibson’s poems extended a loving hand to the heartbroken. They advocated for gay marriage, gun control and transparency in the healthcare system, working closely with movements like Take Back the Night and Power to the Patients throughout their life.
Andrea Gibson performing live in Denver, Colorado. Photo by Andy Thomas.
“Poetry and art in general can be this amazing connective tool,” Gibson said in an interview with Westword magazine in 2023. “It engenders empathy. And sometimes I can forget this, but adding beauty to the world is a thing unto itself. We were born astonished. We should never grow out of our astonishment.”
After learning their cancer was terminal in 2023, Gibson’s approach to their art shifted. Instead of the fiery political readings of their early career, they focused on the importance of a loving connection with the world. Gibson was, for the majority of their life, incredibly anxious. They worried about allergies, had chronic panic attacks, were terrified of the ocean and had stage fright. Every day was a struggle for control in an inherently uncontrollable life. When things did finally fall apart, instead of fighting, they surrendered. No longer was the end a possibility; it was inevitable. Faced with their own mortality, they learned how to live.
In the last two years of Gibson’s life, their poems focused largely on death and what it means to be alive. They began a newsletter called Things That Don’t Suck, which now has over 150 thousand members. 10 times a month, Gibson searched for things they were grateful for amidst the hell of incurable ovarian cancer and published their gratitude through articles on Substack. The articles began as an outlet for Gibson’s personal writing, but amidst the COVID-19 pandemic and political unrest, they became a balm for the sore spirits of thousands of readers.
“My story is one about happiness / being easier to find once we finally realize / we do not have forever to find it,” Gibson wrote.
Gibson’s art is especially relevant in today’s political climate. It’s hard to confront the grief caused by recent events, but to build walls around suffering is to keep the pain stuck. Sadness left to rot turns into hatred, and God knows we don’t need more of that.
Gibson’s work calls on us to soften in the face of sadness, grief and anger. Gentleness is not weakness, but a conscious effort to approach the world kindly.
Andrea Gibson’s work and death remind us of the impermanence of life and of the importance of living fully while we are here. We live on this planet for a finite amount of time, and I beg you not to spend that time with fists clenched in rage. Extend your arms to hold the hands of others, speak your mind, act out of love and learn to be okay with the uncertainty of it all.
Andrea Gibson Poems I Recommend
Tincture (!!!)
Pole Dancer
Swing-Set
Every Time I Ever Said I Want to Die
Wellness Check