Nothing But The Poem - Andrea Gibson
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What is the purpose of the Nothing But The Poem podcast?
Hello and welcome to Nothing But The Poem.
Welcome everybody to our Nothing But The Poem podcast, our regular dive into some poems by a poet that I've selected as part of our Nothing But The Poem discussion group who meet on the first Friday of the month online.
and that's for the Friends of the SPL.
My name is Sam Tung and I'm the project coordinator here at Scottish Poetry Library. And just by way of an introduction, if you haven't already heard one of these podcasts, the Nothing But a Poem podcasts, the way it works is that in the sessions we come together online, I share some poems with the participants and we simply discuss them.
We just them through twice and talk about them and see what impact they make on us. For good or for ill, we can be quite critical when needs be, but that's all part of the conversation as to how a poem works and what it does.
So the poet that I chose for this podcast is Andrea Gibson. They were Colorado's Poet Laureate from 2023 until their death in 2025 from ovarian cancer. One of the reasons I wanted to choose to look at Andrea's work
is just the way in which they touched a lot of poets around the world and the impact of their death generated so many responses and so much love, to be honest, that I wanted to try and read some of their poems as part of that remembrance. And it's also a good excuse for me, full disclosure, it's always a good excuse for me to read a poet and some poems that I haven't read before and read them with other people because that communal reading can lead to so much interpretation and so much commentary and a really kind of different perspective on things. So in the session, we managed to read three poems together. I'll give you some insight into two of those poems today. First poem is a longish one.
Who was Andrea Gibson and what was her impact on poetry?
I'm going to read it in its entirety. These are all available online, so you can find them. This one was on, I think it was on poets.org, quite widely published as well. So this poem is called In the chemo room, I wear mittens made of ice so I don't lose my fingernails. But I took a risk today to write this down. Whenever I spend the day crying, my friends tell me I look high. Good grief, they finally understand me. Even when the arena is empty, I thank God for the shots I miss. If you ever catch me only thanking God for the shots I make, remind me I'm not thanking God. Remind me all my prayers were answered the moment I started praying for what I already have. Jenny says when people ask if she's out of the woods, she tells them she'll never be out of the woods, says there is something lovely about the woods.
I know how to build a survival shelter from fallen tree branches, packed mud, and pulled moss. I could survive forever on death alone. Wasn't it death that taught me to stop measuring my lifespan by length, but by width? Do you know how many beautiful things can be seen in a single second?
What themes are explored in Andrea Gibson's poem 'In the Chemo Room'?
How you can blow up a second like a balloon and fit infinity inside of it? I'm infinite, I know, but I still have a measly wrinkle collection compared to my end goal. I would love to do a before picture, I think, as I look in the mirror and mistake my head for the moon. My dark thoughts are almost always 238,856 miles away from me believing them. I love this life, I whisper into my doctor's stethoscope so she can hear my heart. My heart, an heirloom I didn't inherit until I thought I could die. Why did I go so long believing I owed the world my disappointment? Why did I want to take the world by storm when I could have taken it by sunshine, by rosewater, by the cactus flowers on the side of the road where I broke down?
I'm not about to waste more time spinning stories about how much time I'm owed, but there is a man who is usually here who isn't today. I don't know if he's still alive. I just know his wife was made of so much hope, she looked like a firework above his chair. Will the afterlife be harder if I remember the people I love, or forget them? Either way, please let me remember. Obviously, when we're approaching poems that deal with or try to deal with cancer and disease in this way, we are covering a lot of ground that has been covered before.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the purpose of the Nothing But The Poem podcast?
0:00–2:21
2
Who was Andrea Gibson and what was her impact on poetry?
2:21–3:35
3
What themes are explored in Andrea Gibson's poem 'In the Chemo Room'?
3:35–5:17
4
How does the poem 'In the Chemo Room' address the experience of cancer?
5:17–6:59
5
What insights does the group discussion reveal about community in poetry?
6:59–9:17
6
What is the significance of the poem 'Instead of Depression'?
9:17–11:35
7
How does Andrea Gibson redefine the concept of depression in her poetry?
11:35–13:30
8
What are the concluding thoughts on Andrea Gibson's legacy and poetry?
13:30–16:16