The Revolutionary and Radical Tenderness of Andrea Gibson

New York Times

2 days ago

In November 2017 I found myself at the W Hotel in Washington dancing with my friend, and fellow poet, Andrea Gibson. We had just finished a poetry reading at the Kennedy Center together and were looking to shake off the residual adrenaline of our show.
I also wanted to shake off the past few months of my life. Two months earlier, I had written a Times Opinion essay about my experience with gender inequality in the film and television industry, 'I'm Done With Not Being Believed.' It coincided with the groundbreaking reporting on Harvey Weinstein that helped ignite the #MeToo movement.
For weeks, everyone I ran into had told me how brave I was, how strong, for writing that essay. I felt thrust into being the face of something I was not entirely prepared for. In the dark of the dance floor, Andrea grabbed my shoulders and hugged me close, and said into my ear: 'I want you to know it's OK to not be OK right now. You've done a huge heart thing, and I see you.' I began to cry, letting myself go in Andrea's arms as Britney Spears blared on the speakers above us about how loneliness was killing her.
This was the Andrea I knew for close to 20 years and the person the world is grieving after they died on July 14 at the age of 49. Andrea, who was nonbinary and used they/them pronouns, was the ultimate empath, someone who knew how to give you exactly what you needed when you were least expecting it, both in their relationships and their writing.
Andrea had a unique ability to offer their readers and listeners a way of living, to show us how much we need tenderness, and how to be tender as a radical act. One of the last poems they wrote, 'Love Letter From the Afterlife,' was written for their wife and creative collaborator, Megan Falley, but also, for a fractured world.
It asks us to do what might feel impossible right now: Soften toward, not away from, one another, even at such a heightened time of vitriol and hate. It was written by a poet who lived their brief life with a consciousness of something bigger than themselves — a collective belief, whether we are aware of it or not, that all of us long to feel less alone. 'My love, I was so wrong. Dying is the opposite of leaving,' the poem begins. '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.'
Andrea started their career as a spoken word artist in the early 2000s with a style of fiery performance poetry in the sweet spot where the political and personal meet. They were beloved across artistic genres for their ability to express a relatable and refreshing anger at the injustices of the world, most notably those aimed at the L.G.B.T.Q. community. They toured relentlessly for two decades with musicians and entertainers including the singer Ani DiFranco and the comedian Tig Notaro.
In 2007, I watched Andrea perform their poem 'I Do,' about California's Proposition 8 banning same-sex marriage (it was eventually deemed unconstitutional). As Andrea delivered the final lines of the poem, white-knuckling the microphone and spitting into the air like a punk rock singer, the silence of the audience was pierced by the sound of a man bursting into tears, followed by the loudest applause I have ever heard a poet receive.
In 2021, Andrea was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Facing mortality did not pause their work, but altered it. Once fueled by a brand of fiery rage onstage, Andrea's writing began to take a much softer, deeper shape, though it was no less political or radical. As Andrea began to process what it meant to be losing their life, they could see more clearly than ever how the world was losing its humanity. Their work began to focus on the kind of tenderness and grace people were craving on the other side of the Covid pandemic and the first presidential term of Donald Trump.
In a poem titled, 'How The Worst Day of My Life Became the Best,' Andrea wrote:
When I realized the stormwas inevitable, I made itmy medicine.
Took two snowflakeson the tongue in the morning,two snowflakes on the tongueby noon.
There were no side effects.Only sound effects. Reverbadded to my lifespan,an echo that asked —
What part of your life's record is skipping?What wound is on repeat?Have you done everything you canto break out of that groove?
Andrea understood that poetry can be both a balm and a means of disarming the weaponization of our hearts against one another. It is a way to present a bridge between the division of our worst fears and our best selves, and ask us to walk over that bridge when we're ready.
Take Andrea's poem 'MAGA Hat in the Chemo Room,' about the complex, bewildering emotions of sitting next to a person with different politics from you while getting chemo. Behind seemingly insurmountable differences, it says, we are just human, each and every one of us, living and dying together on this planet, in perpetuity.
After their diagnosis, Andrea stopped touring as heavily as they once did, and turned to Instagram Reels as a creative outlet, as well as a newsletter, Things That Don't Suck. In 2023, a video Andrea made on lessons they learned after learning their cancer was now incurable, went viral. On a drive, they said, they had done the bravest thing they had ever done. 'I picked my head up and I loved the world that I knew wouldn't always be mine.' They went on, 'I think many of us are doing it almost all the time; we are not allowing ourselves joy or love or peace because we are afraid to lose it. Don't be so afraid of losing life that you forget to live it.'
The message tapped into something potent and meaningful that people needed, to feel connected, seen and understood — a counterbalance to the doom-scrolling and compare-and-despair mentality that plagues so much of everyday life.
When Andrea left this world, I noticed how so many people from different corners of the internet asked themselves how they could be so grief-stricken by the death of someone they had never met. Andrea's gift was to mirror the kind of grace and kindness we've all been searching for, despite the shame we may feel in asking for it. In these last years, they were forging a new kind of radical path as an artist. Theirs was a tenderness activism born out of a love for the life they were still able to live and a desire for others to love and live theirs, too. It was the antithesis to a world hardened by division, isolation and a growing distrust for our neighbors.
It was as if Andrea saw our separation like a zipper on our nation and was slowly, assuredly pulling us up and back together again, one poem at a time.
Amber Tamblyn is an author, an actor and the director and publisher of the newsletter Listening in the Dark, as well as the editor of the anthology 'Listening in the Dark: Women Reclaiming the Power of Intuition.'
The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We'd like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here's our email: [e-mail].
Follow the New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Bluesky, WhatsApp and Threads.