On Friday night, the Radcliffe Union of Students (RUS) brought spoken word poet Andrea Gibson to Science Center A for its annual fall semester concert. As one of the organizers of the event, I can attest to the inordinate amount of last minute planning, hurried decisions, and ensuing stress. Even though there were so many roadblocks, it was definitely worth it.
Because RUS is a feminist organization, we always bring a performer who is sympathetic to the cause for the fall semester concert. Andrea Gibson is certainly one of those artists, since much of their work centers around issues of gender and sexuality, often drawing on Gibson’s own experiences. Gibson uses they/them/theirs for gender pronouns, rather than she/her/hers or him/his, so it was interesting to hear their work coming from that perspective.
I have always enjoyed spoken word poetry, but I found that Andrea’s was particularly powerful. I was not that familiar with their work before organizing this performance, so bringing Andrea to campus encouraged me to watch their old performances on YouTube and read some of their spoken word online. Their poetry is full of descriptive imagery, and metaphors that really add more meaning to the words. Andrea’s delivery was spot-on, really driving the point home.
The audience was incredibly receptive to the performance; after it ended, there was a huge crowd waiting to meet Andrea and have them sign posters and CDs. I was so happy to have facilitated bringing Andrea to campus, and to provide people with this opportunity to hear spoken word poetry that could impact how they view the world and how they relate to others.