Pansy

by Andrea Gibson

In Pansy, Gibson balances themes of love, gender, politics, sexuality, illness, family and forgiveness with stunning imagery and a fierce willingness to delve into the exploration of what it means to truly heal. Each turn of the page represents both that which as been forgotten and that which is yet to be released. While this book is a rally cry for political action, it is also a celebration of wonder and longing and love.

Genres: Poetry, Queer, LGBT, Feminism, Nonfiction, Queer Lit, Mental Health

126 pages, Paperback

First published March 15, 2015

About the author

Andrea Faye Gibson was an American poet and activist. Their poetry focused on gender norms, politics, social justice, LGBTQ topics, life, and mortality. Gibson was appointed as the Poet Laureate of Colorado in 2023.

Reviews

[Erin · Rating 5 out of 5]

"All the wars we've fought
have turned our shine into rust;
Now we can't touch each other's trust
without a tetanus shot."

[taissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5, if you're into having your heart broken

[johnny ♡ · Rating 3 out of 5]

not as eloquent as i expected.

[Jillian · Rating 5 out of 5]

I fiercely adore Andrea Gibson's work. It is just so emotional and funny and irreverent, and I feel sad over one poem and laugh at the next. Gibson nails the balance between humor, love, tragedy, and social justice. Of all their collections, this one definitely feels the most personal, like Gibson carved their heart out and offered up to readers. It might be Gibson's best.

My favorite three poems in Pansy are Angels of the Get-Through, Etiquette Leash, and To the Men Catcalling My Girlfriend While I'm Walking Beside Her. Angels of Get-Through is a poem by a best friend for a best friend that is currently drowning. It really resonated with me because I could see myself saying these words to a friend. I have had similar words said to me. I especially loved these lines.

"You are the same compass you have always been. You are the same friend who never left my side during my worst year. You caught ever tantrum I threw with you bare hands, chucked it back at the blood moon."

Etiquette Leash perfectly captures and salutes the outrage activists have over the state of the world. Furthermore, it encourages it. Gibson has a point; we should be angrier. We should not be quiet. As Gibson says:

"May the drought howl us awake. May we rush into the streets to do the work of opening each other's eyes. May our good hearts forever be too loud to let the neighbors sleep."

To the Men Catcalling My Girlfriend While I'm Walking Beside Her should be required reading for every guy, for every asshole who thinks hollering at women on the street is welcomed. It is not. It is creepy and demeaning, and no women enjoys catcalling. Gibson couldn't have said it better in this poem. I'm not going to quote it because I would just want to quote all of it. Instead, I highly recommend a read. There was also an extended version of The Madness Vase, which is my favorite Andrea Gibson poem, that is tremendous. It starts the same but has additional verses, and it is a lighthouse for anyone having a hard time or considering suicide.

Andrea Gibson is my favorite poet. I will read every collection Gibson publishes. Highly recommended!

[Sleepless Dreamer]

I do not feel like I have a right to the trauma.

I wasn't there in southern Israel when they slaughtered us. All my family and friends have survived. I am okay. Scared, angry, heart broken, heart shattered but okay.

Yet every time I close my eyes, I think about the hostages in Gaza. I think about Noa, screaming on that motorbike. My mind flashes to Shani's body, unconcious and naked on a pickup truck as men spit on her. The piles of bodies, the blood stained walls. Destroyed homes. The sheer horror of it all.

No matter how many times you repeat the term "beheaded children", it still makes no sense. I am okay.

Israelis are now bombarded with mental health advice (and rockets). Don't watch too much news, reach out to loved ones. Ask for help. Run to the bomb shelters. And I'm trying.

I speak to Western pro-Palestinian advocates because I'd rather read about IHL than face the devastation. Come on, I'm smart enough to make this reality make sense, I will cram it into academics, fold it until it becomes a home. Call me a murderer, you can't hurt me like Hamas did.

I blink and it's 2am. Blink. It's 4pm. 8am. Time doesn't matter, a blur of volunteer opportunities and funerals and "are you okay", from close friends, to friends in the military, from not-close friends. My phone is full of messages but answering takes obscene amount of energy. We don't know what day it is. I am okay.

The mind cannot comprehend that it is a war. Clear out your bomb shelters, they say. 72 hours worth of water. I checked the news. I'm okay.

I am dragged into watching dumb sitcoms. I forced myself to eat pizza. I checked the news. The streets are grieving. I hug my loved ones several times a day.

People have been applauding my serenity and vulnerability and emotional strength and bravery and fuck, I checked the news. I am okay. I do not have the words to explain what I have lost. I am hiding under functional words, you cannot see tears through this.

I am okay.

A review will come once I am able to see a world again.

[Ari · Rating 5 out of 5]

I tried pacing myself with this. It's my first read of Gibson; I've only ever listened before, so I wanted to really slow down and read. When I listen to their spoken word I have to do it with my eyes closed because it feels like meditation, so I thought maybe taking it slow would have a similar effect. Reading Gibson's work is thirst quenching, though, and I ended up gulping. Which brought me to an interesting realization: I've always admired people who can analytically attend to literature. I can (and do enjoy) engage in those discussion, though generally only as it applies to the content. I'm not well versed in analytical process of the words and structure themselves - at least not versed in it past high school AP Lit. This work, though, was the first time I finished reading and actually wanted to go back through and 'analyze' the words. And what that really means is I wanted to go back and reread until I'd memorized the words so that I would finally have the means to describe things I've only ever had feelings attached to before.

[Maria · Rating 5 out of 5]

"They're telling you to blend in,
like you've never seen how a blender works,
like they think you've never seen the mess from the blade."

I am still here.

[Annie Teer · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Love is a downpour of shelter.”

[Rhiannon · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have a story about this book.
I had a dog named Gadget that we adopted when I was 5 years old. I am now 22. He was with us for 17, almost 18 years. It was time to make the decision to let him go, as hard as it was. Gadget loved cuddling when he was younger, but as he got older his bones would get too achy to cuddle with us. So instead of cuddling I found a new way to spend time with him -- I'd read him poetry. I received a copy of this book for Christmas, and having never read it before I decided to grab it on my way down to my parents' house to see him. I was going to spend my last night with him because we were letting him go the next morning. When I got there and started reading to him, to my surprise the second poem in the collection was "A Letter to My Dog Exploring the Human Condition." It was just what I needed to read to him that night. Thank you Andrea Gibson for allowing the last night I spent with my best friend to be such a special one.

[Basmaish · Rating 4 out of 5]

Andrea Gibson is one of my favorite poets and this poetry collection is mesmerizing. You definitely need to youtube their videos and watch them perform because they literally breathes life into their poems.

[andrea · Rating 5 out of 5]

actually the best poetry collection i've ever read. andrea gibson is a REVELATION.

[Noora · Rating 5 out of 5]

Over the years Andrea Gibson has become my favourite poet. They manage to fill their poetry with raw emotions that sometimes leave me breathless. They write about themes such as love, gender, sexuality and mental health.

My favourite poems were The madness vase aka the nutritionist, Plum and For the leaving.

[Majo · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Remember you never have an obligation to quiet the hurricane inside your chest"

[Raine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have been told sometimes the most healing thing we can do, is to remind ourselves over and over.. Other people feel this too.

[Bree Hill · Rating 5 out of 5]

"I've finally learned love is a screened in porch.
I've finally learned love is knowing everybody's name in the town of your reasons to run."

There's no way I could give this collection of poetry anything less than five stars.
These poems are so in your face, so real, so raw so aware they are amazing. There are two poems I reread multiple times and laughed out loud each time like it was my first time reading them. There were poems I had to raise my fist in the air and say hell yes #Woke! Finally a five star read for 2017. I can't wait to revisit these again and again and again.

[vanessa · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5.
Still trying to understand what I'm looking for in poetry. I enjoyed this collection, I especially loved the poems that focused on politics and white privilege. I'm not much for poetry about romance/love (or haven't found some I liked yet). I can understand why this speaks to people.

[Julie Derosa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Andrea Gibson never fails to move me. Beautiful poems. 'Angels of the get-through' my personal favorite from this collection.

[Talicha Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

AMAZING! This is one of the best books of poetry that I have ever read. I laughed, I cried, I was outraged. This book put me through it in the best way. Love Andrea's work.

[Sara]

This was my first time reading any of Andrea's poems. I've heard them performed many times. They have a special and different magic on paper.

[Grearjess · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m not a queer person myself so it feels a little odd to comment on the actual content of this book. And I’m also not really a poetry person so what are we really doing here.

But I did enjoy this book. Andrea Gibson is raw and open, even with things that very clearly don’t portray them positively. This book balances vulnerability with levity and that I found that to keep me engaged.

There were a few moments where I felt the writing was a little lazy. Specifically in the poem where they just list things that don’t suck and add nothing more… That’s a pet peeve of mine in nonfiction.

But overall, as not a poetry gal, I kinda liked it.

[B · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall, I’m not sure I resonate with all of Gibson’s work; however, there were moments where I was aggressively annotating in the margins. I sent “Angels of the Get Through” to my best friend because I felt it as much as I read it.

[Samu · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this when it first came out but it must not have been on Goodreads yet. Anyway. What can I say.

I wish I could get my elbows to stay. I don't know if I'll live through any more skinned knee hearts. But I know I am not alone. I don't know if I am ever going to be able to accept that the pace of my growth has already hurt so many people. I want to say, "It's okay. Everyone's survival looks a little bit like death sometimes." to you everyday for the rest of your life or at least until you start surviving. So many things that don't suck. I would never wait that extra twenty minutes, because I know about your life, and I'd text you right back. I wanna come home. I have decided to learn to bake casseroles, and I am going to learn everybody's name. I am giving back your miracle. One day, I am going to stop forgiving her and learn to cry for the right reasons, the wrong reasons, and for any reason I damn well please. I'm gonna write my heart in. It's time to let go of the shame.

Please, I love you.

[✩☽ · Rating 2 out of 5]

Do you remember the first time you knew you were absolutely safe?

in a way this book holds more sentimental value to me that it does literary merit. gibson's work was all the rage in my circle of depressed gay tumblrinas back in the day - it carried me through the suffocating homophobia that defined my adolescence. years later and oceans away, it felt like something of a miracle to walk out on church and wellesley with an actual physical copy of pansy in my hands.

The tomorrow has come and gone, and it has not gotten better.

gibson's poetry is at its most evocative when it draws from personal experience, inhabiting the particular dull/sharp ache of living through the unlivable. unfortunately this collection is interspersed with guilt ridden privilege politics which i always find a tedious exercise in navel gazing. and ngl the love poems are kind of corny. still, even at its clumsiest, gibson has a kind of raw honesty that can at times be oddly charming. then again that may be the nostalgia talking.

[Maia · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's very rare that I read a book of poetry front to back in essentially one sitting, but this is a really extraordinary volume. The author, Andrea Gibson, is currently on an international tour taking these words and others to a staggering number of stages. The poems are full of the mixed up process of pain and healing, of being strong and vulnerable at the right times, of questioning gender, of queer love and heartbreak. Published in 2015, they chronicle a rising awareness of racism and racial violence. The two line poem titled "Ferguson" reads simply "A sea of blood, America,/and not even a shell held to your ear." Other poems range to four or five pages. Other poem titles include: "A Letter to White Queers, a Letter to Myself", "Things That Don't Suck", "An Insider's Guide on How to Be Sick", "A Genderful Pep-Talk For My Younger Self" and "Etiquette Leash". I can tell these will be poems I return to, and I look forward to reading more of Gibson's work.

[chiara · Rating 5 out of 5]

this is my first time reading their work after seeing their spoken word performance of 'living proof' on YouTube and being moved to tears. where the hell have i been all this time? such beautiful words, images, emotions. they're easily becoming one of my favourite poets, ever.

i recommend watching the performance i mentioned if you wanted a snippet. then read this at your own pace - maybe one poem a day, to allow for adequate emotional turmoil, or devour it in a couple of hours like i did, and have a head full of underdeveloped love stories and the urge to reread the book again, and again, and again.

[Queen · Rating 5 out of 5]

So many great gems in this book. Wow! I wish I would've taken more time to read but I couldn't help myself. A lot of different themes are discussed. Refreshing.

[Angela · Rating 5 out of 5]

amazing total brutal brilliance that cannot be described other than the words that make up the book

[Fleur Booth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Again again again

[Maddie Sharmat · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ugh this was so amazing! I have been meaning to get more into Andrea Gibson, and this was a great way to start. I know they're a spoken-word poet, but it's really nice to take the time to read their poems and process what they write.
It was also really depressing to read, since this was published in around 2015. And there's so many poems about police brutality, and it doesn't age well in 2021 knowing virtually nothing's changed.

[Crazytourists_books · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't know Andrea Gibson and their work before opening this book and I have to say that I liked it. Even though English is not my first language, and that makes poetry a bit hard, and even though I don't share experiences with Gibson, a few of their poems really touched me and brought tears to my eyes.
I thing I'll be reading more of their work in the near future.