‘Love Letter from the Afterlife,’ Andrea Gibson’s poetry finds new life in Toronto tribute

It’s rare for a tribute to fully capture the impact of an artistic powerhouse like the late poet Andrea Gibson, but Love Letter from the Afterlife does just that. 

The literary world lost a giant with the passing of Andrea Gibson in 2024 following a years-long battle with ovarian cancer. Throughout their career, the Louisiana-born poet became one of the most recognizable voices in contemporary Queer poetry, using spoken word to explore the complexities of identity, love, heartbreak, gender, illness and the human experience. Their work was celebrated for its emotional vulnerability and ability to articulate feelings that often went unspoken, building a devoted following among Queer audiences and poetry enthusiasts alike.

The emotional show centres on a recording of Gibson’s final 2024 performance at Denver’s Paramount Theatre, combining the late poet’s reading with live music from the Goosebumps Orchestra. In a previous interview with Queer & Now, Gibson’s wife and the show’s producer, Megan Falley, explained that grief has not been the end of her love story with Gibson, but instead something that has generated new ways for them to connect. 

“I thought that I would be halved by this loss, and instead I feel doubled by this loss,” Falley explained. “I feel like I get to carry Andrea inside of me. I feel like I get to live for both of us.”

Falley, who is a poet, writer and performer in her own right, is carrying both her love and grief forward in a tender show that explores loss, the human condition, grief, and the ways that being loved shapes our lives: Andrea Gibson: Love Letter from the Afterlife.

 Love Letter from the Afterlife in Toronto

The Monday night show was opened by artists and former collaborators of Gibson, Chris Pureka and Edie Carey. Both performers shared touching sets about love, loss, and grief to ease the audience into the show, before the screening of Gibson’s final performance played onscreen, accompanied by musicians from the orchestra. 

Pureka and Carey then returned to the stage, joining Falley for several musical numbers, including a stripped-back version of Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On,” sung by Carey, while Falley read the show’s namesake, one of Gibson’s final pieces, Love Letter from the Afterlife. 

The poem, which is framed as if delivered to Falley from Gibson on the other side of death, reads, in part:

“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.”

The poem goes on to describe life after death, lamenting that those who love us never truly need us.

“ I wish you could see the beauty your spirit is right now making of your pain, your deep seated fears playing musical chairs, laughing about how real they are not. My love, I want to sing it through the rafters of your bones, Dying is the opposite of leaving,” it continues. 

“I want to echo it through the corridor of your temples, I am more with you than I ever was before.”

The performance, which took over Toronto’s Elgin and Winter Garden Theatre, garnered a crowd of Sapphics and poetry enthusiasts alike, many of whom sat quietly weeping in the audience throughout the three-hour show, using tissues to blot away tears and leaning on one another for comfort. Love Letter from the Afterlife will resonate with anyone who has lost a lover or someone else close to them. It acts as a balm for the ache that comes with losing someone we feel deeply connected to. 

There was something particularly intimate about watching a room filled with 2SLGBTQIA+ community collectively experience Gibson’s words post-mortem. Their poetry has long offered audiences a space to sit with the complexities of Queer love and identity, and the tribute served as a reminder of the profound connections that can be built through art. While the evening centred on the loss of one person, it also celebrated the community, relationships and shared experiences their work helped cultivate.

Ultimately, Love Letter from the Afterlife is more than a tribute to a celebrated poet. It is a testament to the enduring nature of love, the relationships that shape us and the art that allows us to hold onto the people we’ve lost. Through Gibson’s recorded words, Falley’s readings and the music shared throughout the evening, the production reminds audiences that while grief may change the way we experience love, it doesn’t erase it.