ANDREA GIBSON, born on this date, (d: 7/14/2025) was an American poet and activist. Their poetry focused on gender norms, politics, social justice, LGBTQ topics, life, and mortality. Gibson was appointed as the Poet Laureate of Colorado in 2023. 

Gibson attended Saint Joseph’s College of Maine, a Catholic private school in Standish, Maine. She attended on a basketball scholarship, and graduated in 1997 with an English degree.

Gibson’s poetry focuses on gender norms, politics, social justice, and LGBTQ topics. After their cancer diagnosis, Gibson also began writing poetry on topics including depression, illness, life, and mortality. Gibson helped to drive a resurgence in the popularity of spoken word poetry in the mid-2000s.

In 2008, Gibson published their first book of poetry, Pole Dancing To Gospel Hymns. This was followed by The Madness Vase and Pansy, all published by Write Bloody Publishing. Gibson also wrote and published Take Me with You, a book of quotes and phrases. In 2018, they published Lord of the Butterflies.

Gibson’s album Yellowbird incorporated music with spoken word. Confronting fear was a theme in poems of their following album, Flower Boy. Gibson also released Truce in 2013, followed by Hey, Galaxy in 2018. In total, Gibson wrote seven poetry books and published seven albums.

Gibson cited Sonya Renee Taylor, Derrick Brown, Anis Mojgani, Patricia Smith, and Mary Oliver as their influences.^] Gibson toured heavily, despite suffering from stage fright.

In addition to using poetry to provide social and political commentary on gender and LGBTQ issues, Gibson was involved with many activist groups, and also performed at Take Back the Night events. For about a decade, Gibson performed with Vox Feminista, a “performance tribe of radical feminists bent on social change through cultural revolution”.

In 2019, Gibson collaborated with producer Sarah Megyesy and musician Ani DiFranco to produce a video for the poem “America, Reloading”, which discusses gun violence in the United States.

After seven years of dating, Gibson and fellow poet Megan Falley announced their engagement in August 2022, and later married.

Gibson was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in August 2021. In August  2022, they canceled a scheduled tour due to a recurrence of the cancer. They announced a further recurrence in May 2023 on the We Can Do Hard Things podcast with Glennon Doyle.

Gibson and their wife are the subjects of the Academy Award-nominated documentary Come See Me in the Good Light, which documented their marriage and how they dealt with Gibson’s terminal cancer diagnosis. Directed by Ryan White and produced by comedian Tig Notaro, the film won the Festival Film Favorite Award at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. Gibson co-wrote a song titled “Salt Then Sour Then Sweet” for the documentary, with executive producers Sara Bareilles and Brandi Carlile.

Gibson died of ovarian cancer on July 14, 2025, aged 49, at their home in Longmont, Colorado.