Regie Gibson

Watch Regie Gibson reading at the 2008 Poetry Festival.

Poet, songwriter, author, workshop facilitator, and educator Regie Gibson has performed, taught, and lectured at schools, universities, theaters and various other venues on two continents and in seven countries, including The Art Institute of Chicago, Harvard University’s Longfellow Hall for the Cambridge Poetry Festival, and Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theater’s award-winning Traffic Series with David Amram, which included a collaboration with Jack Kerouac & Allen Ginsberg. He has worked with artists such as Gwendolyn Brooks, Yosef Komunyakaa, Lisel Mueller, The Last Poets, Amiri Baraka, Kurt Vonnegut, members of the world famous Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, and Hip Hop artist Mos Def. He has taught, lectured and facilitated workshops for the Cambridge Poetry Festival at Harvard University, the Poetry Center of the Art Institute of Chicago, Detroit Black Writers Guild, and the University of Chicago Lab School. In 1998, Gibson was the National Poetry Slam Individual Champion and won the Chicago Tribune’s Artist of the Year for Excellence for his poetry. In 1999, Regie founded the Church of The Funky Word, a literary and musical arts ensemble utilizing ancient, contemporary and original literary text combined with world music and rituals from various world cultures. Widely published in anthologies, magazines and journals, he released his first full-length book of poetry, Storms Beneath The Skin (EM Press) in 2001. He partnered with renowned percussionist and composer Kahil El Zabar (composer of the musical The Lion King) for his own piece “Hey Nappyhead,” which appeared in the New Line Cinema film Love Jones, based largely on events in his life.