Andrea Gibson, a poet and activist, will be providing a night of poetry at Ohio University in spirit of feminist week.
Gibson’s performance is part of OU’s Empowered Women’s Week, which began Friday, and will feature a number of events and activities throughout the week.
“I saw Andrea Gibson a couple of years ago at a conference and thought she was phenomenal and I wanted to support it,” said Susanne Dietzel, director of the Women’s Center.
Lacey Rogers, president of Empowering Women of Ohio and Hannah Dunn, the group’s treasurer, enjoyed Gibson’s performance at a conference last year and decided she needed to perform at OU.
“It’s a really powerful experience,” Rogers said. “You’re kind of going to start thinking about some issues that you haven’t really thought about before.”
Gibson’s visit was funded through the Senate Appropriations Commission, along with funding from the Women’s Center, the LGBT Center, the Women’s and Gender studies department and Open Doors, Rogers said.
Gibson will be speaking about different topics such as privilege, class, war, patriarchy, sexuality, mental illness and love.
“I studied creative writing in college, then fell in love with Spoken Word shortly after that. I’ve been hooked ever since,” Gibson said.
Gibson’s manager and CEO of Faux Pas Productions, Christen Greene, said she was instantly drawn to the poet after attending one of her shows.
“I went to a show of hers to see if it was something I’d want to work with and I literally cried,” she said. “I walked up to her after the show and said, ‘We should do this, you’re incredible.’ That was about five or six years ago.”
Dietzel and Rogers expect a full house for Gibson’s performance.
“I think that (the audience) will be in for a great evening of poetry, spoken word performance and they will leave the performance empowered and feeling good about themselves,” said Dietzel. “That’s how I felt when I left her performance.”
Gibson will also be doing a workshop on Wednesday with 25 attendees in the Women’s Center. Because of limited seating, tickets to the event were given away in a lottery on Friday.
je726810@ohiou.edu
