In 2023, Gibson was named Colorado’s tenth state poet laureate, a role created to promote poetry appreciation in the state and honor local wordsmiths.

Andrea Gibson, a celebrated poet and performance artist who through their verse explored gender identity, politics and their 4-year battle with terminal ovarian cancer, died Monday at age 49.

The poem “How I Became a Poet” dwells for nearly five minutes on Andrea’s youth — “the tiniest kid in my class/hair cut so strange I looked like a third-grade boy/who gets picked on by his first-grade...