“Do you want to hear the best story you’ve ever heard in your life?” Andrea Gibson asks at the beginning of her poem “Maybe I Need You,” a spoken word song that when performed live is paired with a Bon Iver song or a song equally heartbreaking. “So I met this woman and I went home to her house with her,” she continues, “already a great story, right?” This intimate approach to storytelling is what makes poet and LGBTQ activist Andrea Gibson’s work so powerful. Her vocal cadence swells with each leap of love, loss, strange encounter, or romantic almost. Gibson is not for the faint of heart.
Andrea Gibson will perform at The Shelter on Sunday, Jan. 14 at 7 p.m.; 431 E. Congress St., Detroit; 313-961-8961; saintandrewsdetroit.com; Tickets are $24.
