Biography
Gabrielle Civil is a black woman poet, conceptual and performance artist originally from Detroit, MI. Since 1999, she has made over a dozen original performance art pieces and shown them nationally and internationally. These include “Anacaona” (premiered 2003 in Río Piedras, Puerto Rico); “After Hieroglyphics” (premiered 2004 at the Center for Independent Artists Festival of Solo Women Performers in Minneapolis, MN), “Berlitz” (premiered 2004 at the Yari Yari Pamberi: Black Women Dissecting Globalization conference in NYC); and most recently “Heart on a Sleeve (premiered 2006 at the Field Trips Performance Marathon at Link’s Hall in Chicago, IL).
A dedicated college and community teacher, she received her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from New York University in 2000, focusing on diasporic black women’s poetry.
Her teaching specialties include international black literature; black feminist poetics; experimental poetry; translation; composition and creative writing. As the co-founder of Witness Tree Literary Arts Education, Inc., a community arts advocacy organization now celebrating its tenth year, she has also organized and hosted many public reading, writing and art events. Most recently, she partnered with Minneapolis-based SASE: the Write Place (now a wing of Intermedia Arts) to design and facilitate the SASE Community Poetry Circle, a year-long effort sponsored by the Centers of Excellence at the College of St. Catherine in St. Paul, MN where she is currently an Associate Professor of English.
The aim of all her work is to open up space.