I first took notice of April Gibson when she stirred up her students by assigning James Baldwin and Jimmy Santiago Baca in entry-level courses. She pushed them to think critically, insisting they could deliver. And they did. I couldn’t have known then that she was also carrying around a universe in her pocket, that a small forever waited quietly between her folded fingers.
In her debut poetry collection, The Span of a Small Forever, Gibson untethers a multitude of past versions of herself. Her words connect the dots between erasures, enjambment, and vernacular, mapping a constellation of charted stars, lightyears in the past, still flickering. Her poems take on the infinite—they remind us to search the night sky despite its being too large in scope to comprehend. In this collection, Gibson reminds us that in order to see the big picture, we need to start small.
Rachel Robbins:
How long did these poems that span so much time take you to write? Do they still feel present?
April Gibson:
From the oldest poem to the last addition, it took roughly ten years to write this collection. And I am writing about things that happened often years before the writing. For me, these poems feel like stories that belong to a past life. There is distance in that they’ve become more about the art or the message than me, which makes them present in a different way, like I am witnessing that girl, that teen, that mom, in a way I couldn’t when I was stuck in survival mode. It’s fascinating and sad at times because I get an up-close look at what 12- or 16-year-old April, for example, could not step back and examine—because it would have been too painful. She may have unraveled or exploded from it all.
Rachel Robbins:
Throughout the text, there are many references to outer space intersecting with minute vestiges of the body. It calls to mind atomic physics and the notion of small universes embedded in the head of a pin, or more aptly, your title itself: The Span of a Small Forever. How is your text engaging with largeness and smallness simultaneously and why do you find yourself zooming out in order to zoom in?
April Gibson:
The idea of universes inside universes, a kind of contained infiniteness, captivates me. The Span of a Small Forever has a lot to do with the body, all those systems within it working in sync, our bodies like giants to millions of tiny cells; it has a lot to do with humanity, our bodies like tiny cells to the stars; it has a lot to do with the in-between, our human bodies being part stardust. We are so big and so small all at once. This helps me put life into perspective.
Rachel Robbins:
In several haunting moments, there’s a likening of stoicism with martyrdom. Do you think this is something that is taught to children, or Black female children in particular?
April Gibson:
The idea of martyrdom, for me, stems more from my religious upbringing than anything, where the models for morality sacrificed themselves for others, no matter the pain. But I think that is more psychological than physical. However, I will say this, if there is anything that teaches Black children to tolerate pain, it is their pain being ignored and it having nowhere else to go.
Rachel Robbins:
In “Misdiagnosed,” we look head-on at that denial of Black female pain: “the white man in the white coat traumatizes us again / with his diagnosis: he claims / there is nothing wrong with me.” Do you view this poem as a form of protest, or was writing less about social justice and more of a personal catharsis?
April Gibson:
This poem is both personal and political. In my view, the doctor not only denied the pain of a visibly sick 11-year-old girl, he projected a history of Black female hypersexuality onto her. So the poem serves to call out these issues in healthcare, but it’s also because it was just so tragic for me. His words stuck with me for years. I still get mad thinking about how long I let someone else’s words live in my head. The poem is a way to take control of the narrative, to expose the problem, but to also give agency to people who have been silenced and left with only the loud and wrong words of those in a position of power.
Rachel Robbins:
Your reflections on bodily scars are searing. How does your work as a whole engage with bodily shame and the post-op experience?
April Gibson:
Shame plays such a big role in this work. Fighting against shame plays just as much of a role. It’s a constant battle. And shame can come in many forms, but bodily shame is difficult, especially if your body has expectations and limitations projected upon it based on gender, race, age, etc. For me, the post-op body is a body in conflict: you often lose parts of yourself to gain a new self. I cannot speak for how others feel or should feel about their bodies when they undergo such radical revisions, but I can hope that we all give ourselves grace and fight against the shame, be it outward or inward.
Rachel Robbins:
What other poets dealing with bodily shame or body positivity have most impacted your writing?
April Gibson:
In one way or another, most poets write about the body (theirs or somebody’s). I’m fascinated by the way some poets, like Patricia Smith, can write about the bodies of others. But, in terms of personal body positivity or shame, there are poets like Lucille Clifton, one of my favs, who wrote lively homages to her hips, poems to her uterus, and later wrote poems about her battle with breast cancer, and writers like Audre Lorde who balances that space between personal shame and embrace in The Cancer Journals, where she discusses a “sense of loss” and how she has “at the same time… gained from the very loss” she mourns.
Rachel Robbins:
You also write about the postpartum experience chillingly. What is it about the notion of a “bikini cut” as a result of a C-section that resonates with you?
April Gibson:
The term itself feels loaded: “bikini cut.” It implies that you’d still be able to wear one, mostly because you would not have the vertical scar that used to be the standard way cesareans were done. More than that is the focus on how the body will present after having a surgery to deliver a whole human from inside you. I just feel like the language itself shows a hyperfocus on superficial aspects of such an overwhelming, sometimes traumatizing, life-changing experience.
Rachel Robbins:
It goes without saying that hair routines and Black identity are intertwined; what is it about Black girlhood in particular that you hoped to get at by writing about hair?
April Gibson:
It’s hard for me to talk about being a Black girl without also talking about hair. And while I did not have an aim, I do want to be clear that despite the negative things that we may have seen in the media and the sociological discourse around Black hair, for me, hair holds many positive emotions and experiences. Letting someone touch my hair requires trust and sometimes can create a kind of closeness, like having my mother pull my hair back in a single braid, or having my grandma press it out, or watching my sister get her hair twisted in a hundred strands while keeping her company, snacking, and giggling, for six hours. Even seeing another Black woman who is an absolute stranger on the street and telling her how good her hair looks, or her telling me, is such a joyful thing—and it’s our thing. It’s been our thing, and it begins in girlhood.
Rachel Robbins:
As English professors, we are obviously steeped in discourse about grammar, semantics, and Standard American English (SAE). You code-switch beautifully in these poems, if you want to call it that. It also reminds me of Kiese Laymon’s reflections on the beauty of Black English. Can you speak to your celebration of this language, and your feelings as an instructor teaching academic writing where you have to edit sentences like these?
April Gibson:
Code-switching is often seen as a way to navigate two worlds, but I like to also see the use of Black English as a way to hold on to a world that is ours, where we are understood. Black English is poetic to me. It’s lyrical and musical and it carries culture, history, story, archive, it’s alive! I love that you bring up Kiese Laymon because he is a genius at writing about this very thing.
As an English professor, I know SAE better than most, and I write in it all the time and enjoy that too. I don’t see a choice to be made between the two in my poetry because it’s poetry and it’s mine. When I am teaching SAE, then that is the goal, and I do it well because I teach it as a skill to be added to students’ toolboxes, not to replace anything. I encourage students to celebrate all their languages.
Rachel Robbins:
Children play a large role in your work: what is it about children—an audience who largely can’t yet make sense of these poems—that stirs you to write for and about them?
April Gibson:
We are all children first, and it is often where we are first loved and first wounded. Going back and listing those past selves can release a lot of joy and pain. It can help us discover more about who we are now because children are better at telling the truth.
POETRY
The Span of a Small Forever
By April Gibson
Amistad Press
Published April 2, 2024
