Celebrated documentary about Andrea Gibson now can be seen on AppleTV or at the Sie FilmCenter

STERLING – For the past 20 years, the ferociously followed poet Andrea Gibson’s words have overcome any and all obstacles to get to wherever in the world they are needed most. 

But for them to make their unlikely way here, to this funeral home in a largely abandoned corner of rural Sterling, Colorado, last Saturday morning … well, that was just tenacious.

To get to Sterling, you have to drive two hours northeast of bionically blue Denver, past the wave of “God Bless Donald Trump” billboards that dot private ranches along Highway 76, turn west at the Sterling Correctional Facility that is by far the largest employer in the region and wind your way into this family friendly town of 13,273 with parks around every corner and in stretches looks emptied.

In the 2024 presidential election, 76.8% of the people here voted Republican.

Gibson was Colorado’s Poet Laureate, a queer slam champion who was known for challenging injustice and giving voice to the marginalized. They died on July 14 after a four-year roller-coaster of a cancer odyssey.

This funeral was for my sister’s sister-in-law, Maureen McNear. She was a remarkable woman who, like Gibson, lived life fiercely. She hadn’t actually lived in Sterling since college but, then again, everyone in her large and tight-knit family has died or also moved away. Maureen, in fact, lived in a farmhouse four hours south of Paris.

But when a member of your family dies, there is only one place to gather. Everyone in this family came home to Sterling to honor a badass woman who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis at 23 but never let it slow her down. In fact it, too, was cancer that took her down – 41 years later.

In her poignant eulogy, niece Jessica McNear described her aunt – the only girl among seven hardy siblings, as “fiercely independent, radiantly and effortlessly beautiful, a lover of all animals on this Earth, a world traveler, an inspiration, and – perhaps to the dismay of some in our family – a liberal French Democrat.” 

Jessica asked everyone in attendance to raise their hands if Maureen ever made them feel special. (Everyone in attendance raised their hands.) Then she exploded my brain when she began to read from Gibson’s masterpiece, “Love Letter from an Afterlife.”

As she read the poem through tears, I thought it reasonable to presume this was the first time Gibson’s words have ever been read, spoken or heard in Sterling. And that Gibson would be smiling like a crescent moon:

“My love, I was so wrong. Dying is the opposite of leaving. 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. I am more with you than I ever could have imagined. So close you look past me when wondering where I am. It’s OK. I know that to be human is to be farsighted. But feel me now, walking the chambers of your heart, pressing my palms to the soft walls of your living. Why did no one tell us that to die is to be reincarnated in those we love while they are still alive?

“Ask me the altitude of heaven, and I will answer: ‘How tall are you?’”

It was electric.

I have written about Gibson several times, but never met them. Not until this week, when I attended the long-awaited premiere of a new documentary called “Come See Me in the Good Light” at the Sie FilmCenter. It is an evisceratingly intimate (and often quite funny) chronicle of Gibson’s final year after being told their ovarian cancer, first diagnosed in 2021, had become terminal.

It has been a long wait for poetry and film fans to see this remarkable film, directed by Ryan White and backed by a star-studded list of producers including Brandi Carlile, Sara Bareilles, Kevin Nealon and former Denver comedian Tig Notaro. In February, the all-Colorado film won the prestigious Sundance Film Festival’s Favorite Award. It’s a prize that can go to any film of any genre. Now I know why.

Gibson, Notaro said, “is just a brilliant, mind-blowing poet. And this is a phenomenal documentary about a phenomenal person.”

Gibson’s reach as a poet was extensive and international, spanning the competitive slam poetry circuit in Denver to mainstream literary recognition and a massive online following. They took off in part because they were accessible and understandable and did not use big words. Gibson was a rare crossover artist who could appear on the same bill with rock bands.

The film, in fact, builds to Gibson’s final live performance at a sold-out Paramount Theatre in Denver, scheduled during a hopeful but brief respite from the cancer’s irreversible death march.

The film finally landed its theatrical and streaming releases simultaneously. Audiences can go to the Sie FilmCenter and both laugh and sniffle in symphony with others through Nov. 27. But the film has also at long last dropped on AppleTV, which now has the potential to introduce Gibson and their words to millions of new audiences.

The film they see will surprise them. Because while “Come See Me in the Good Light” is the story of a life and a death, it is really a love story. A profound one between Gibson and soulmate Megan Falley.

With this film, Gibson offers an intimate, unplanned guide in how to process grief, how to occupy time and space with death, and how to appreciate the joy of whatever seconds we have left. It’s not about trying to beat cancer. It’s about trying to live to 50.

It is about the power and beauty of poetry itself. It’s being told that “anyone who says poetry is frivolous has never needed someone to tell them something really hard.”

To Keith Garcia, artistic director of the Sie FilmCenter, “the film is not only about Andrea’s  countless accomplishments as a poet and activist, but how important life is to fight for – even in the face of terrifying hopelessness.”

Above all else: it is about how cancer didn’t kill Gibson. It saved them. And you may just have to see the movie to understand what that means.

I regret never having gotten the chance to meet or interview Gibson. But I do feel like I knew them, a bit. The film gives a clear enough picture of how Gibson grew up in Maine as a star basketball player but became known as a crime against nature when their true nature revealed itself.

I got a taste of what it must be like for all the Andrea Gibsons of the world on Sept. 6, 2023, when I simply reported the rather benign news story that Gov. Jared Polis had appointed Gibson as the next Colorado Poet Laureate. The job is essentially to serve as the state’s arts ambassador as an active advocate for poetry, literacy and literature by participating in readings at schools, libraries, festivals and other events across the state.

I was going to report this news no matter who Polis had chosen. But the state’s first openly gay governor appointing an openly gay poet unleashed some of the most hateful reader response I’ve ever received – which is saying something, given that I have previously threatened to take all the most profane hate I’ve received over the years and turn it into “Hate Mail: The Musical.”

They called Gibson a pervert and “an enemy of normality.” Several insisted on applying male pronouns to Gibson – using capital letters for churlish emphasis. They excoriated me for calling any attention to the appointment. They called for my termination. This was unfiltered, proud hate from people who until seconds before never knew this person existed. Never read a word of their writing. Now “‘it’ was doing damage to countless children and adults alike.” One celebrated Gibson’s cancer diagnosis.

So it was not with complete objectivity that I sat in the Sie FilmCenter this week and watched and cried and laughed along with a few dozen other strangers who were also profoundly uplifted by Gibson’s story. And felt nothing but gratitude that this poet, and their muse, show us the way through terminal illness and grief by sharing with us a powerful and life-affirming story that reframes death with love and honesty rather than fear.

Upon their death, preceding Colorado Poet Laureate Bobby Lefebre said “Andrea did not lose a battle; they lived a revolution. With their words, they kissed grief on the lips and declared love the most defiant act of all.”

Death has not silenced Gibson’s words, It has given them wings. 

John Moore is the Denver Gazette’s Senior Arts Journalist. Email him at john.moore@denvergazette.com.