Regie Gibson

Assistant Professor

Affiliated Departments

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Regie Gibson has lectured and performed widely in the US, Cuba, and Europe. In Italy, representing the US, he received both the Absolute Poetry Award (Monfalcone) and the Europa en Versi Award (Como). He has also received the Walker Scholarship, a Mass Cultural Council Award, a YMCA Writer’s Fellowship, and the Brother Thomas Fellowship from the Boston Foundation. In addition, he was awarded two Live Arts Boston (LAB) grants for the production of his first musical, The Juke: A Blues Bacchae, in which he uses Euripides’ tragedy to explore African American music and spirituality.

Gibson has served as a consultant for the National Endowment for the Arts' “How Art Works” initiative and “The Mere Distinction of Colour,” a permanent exhibit examining the legacy of slavery and the U.S. Constitution at James Madison’s Montpelier home in Virginia. He is the author of Storms Beneath the Skin, and the creator of The Shakespeare Time-Traveling Speakeasy, a theatrical, literary-musical performance focusing on William Shakespeare. Gibson has performed with, and composed texts for, Boston City Singers, Mystic Chorale, and the Handel and Haydn Society. He was a poet-in-residence at the Museum of Fine Arts and is currently a poet-in-residence at the Cary Memorial Library. He is currently the creative lead on a team of scientists and members of the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre (Hague, Netherlands), helping to craft language regarding issues of climate change. He teaches at Berklee College of Music as well as Clark University.

Career Highlights

Front and lyricist for Atlas Soul, a world music ensemble combining jazz, funk, and blues with elements of North African Rai and Maghreb influences.
Worked and/or recorded with saxophonists Stan Strickland (saxophonist for PoemJazz, a poetry and music project convened by former US Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky), David Murray and Ernest Dawkins of Chicago’s Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, The Jeff Robinson Trio, composer David Amram, vibraphonist Roy Ayers, guitarist Fareed Haque, and percussionist Kahil El'Zabar (composer of the score for the film version of The Lion King, and creator and producer of the Underground Jazz Fest).
Narrated the Boston Ballet’s production of A Fiddler’s Tale, the Lexington Symphony’s production of Scrooged, and selected works of Kurt Vonnegut with trumpeter David Miller.

Awards

The Akademia Music Awards, Best World Beat Video Winner (2016), for “We’re Atlas Soul”
Independent Music Awards, Best Funk and Fusion (2013), for a collaboration with guitarist Pericles Bakalos
Golden Pen Award (2001) for Storms Beneath the Skin

In Their Own Words

Of course I want my students to be better poets. However, what is most important is that they learn to think more poetically—that is, that they find the connections between things, situations, and experiences previously thought of as disparate. Also, I want them to be able to be confident to better connect with an audience with nothing but a microphone and a mission.

Performance has taught me how vital it is to deserve an audience's time. I try to bring that to my students as well. Also, I have learned that a performance is a co-creative act. This, too, is important to understand as an educator—we learn together!