“The streets are talking,” and they’re saying it’s time to heal—as a neighborhood.

That’s the tagline for the new Healing Verse Germantown (HVG) public art project, spearheaded by friends, former poet laureates, and Germantowners Trapeta Mayson and Yolanda Wisher, alongside Rob Blackson. This new project launched last month and looks to use poetry and public art to address gun violence and mental health in Germantown.

HVG is a rendition of the longer-standing Healing Verse Poetry Line, founded by Mayson in 2021. This phone line offers a poem 24/7 alongside a mental health resource in seconds and still plays a role in HVG.

However, this project also strives to bring people together in spaces and encourages them to create their own poems and process their feelings through them. This will happen through ten workshops around the neighborhood through February 2025.

This collaboration is also with Creative Philadelphia (CP), supported by a $1 million grant from Bloomberg Philanthropies. Mayson says when they were applying for the grant, they were asked to think about an issue impacting their community.

Public Art Director from CP Marguerite Anglin says the aim of HVG aligns perfectly with CP’s mission, as they “want to provide opportunities for all Philadelphia to thrive.” And as a storytelling vehicle, she sees HVG creating new innovative ways for people to thrive.

While there are other hot topics affecting Germantown, like gentrification, Mayson says mental health and gun violence more easily connected the work each collaborator was already doing and what community groups have already been working on for some time.

However, there are other objective reasons, too, as writing, poetry, and the arts have already been proven as interventions that “can have a direct impact,” Mayson shares.

How the topic was chosen

Gun violence rates skyrocketed during the COVID-19 pandemic, reaching a peak of 562 homicides in 2021. However, according to the city controller’s data, Philadelphia has experienced a 40% drop (193) compared to 2023.

But even with fewer homicides, Germantown still had a fair share of shootings this year.

Reporting by The Trace credits anti-violence programs as one part of the improvements. And, hopefully, HVG will contribute to the thankful downturn. 

By the end of these workshops, 20 poems from the workshops and the phone line will have been selected to be a part of a public art exhibition that will also grow from these workshops.

Mayson is clear that this project will not answer every single problem a person may have, but hopes it can “offer a nugget, a place, [and] a safe platform” to share their stories.

As a clinical social worker, Mayson knows it’s essential to approach this project from a trauma-informed perspective. It’s also how she knows there’s a gap between people and collective grief. She expects the communal aspect of this work to offer some relief and respite.

“We’re not alone,” Mayson shares. “We’re in this together, and I think that can foster healing.”

Anglin shares similar sentiments, saying that though the workshops won’t “solve the gun violence problem,” efforts are needed “at all different levels of the city, including the arts.”

Anglin shares that the poems are also only one part of these workshops. They will also offer resources from different organizations in Germantown and citywide organizations like the Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual disAbility Services (DBHIDS) at each workshop. 

And to set the tone in each assemblage, a clinician will also lead guests through some kind of creative release. Mayson says that while it’s not therapy itself, it’s an example that there is care packed into these gatherings.

The power of writing with neighbors

The first workshop was held on Saturday, October 5, at Our House Culture Center, and goers lent their opinions on their experience and the importance of this project.

Doriana Diaz has ties to the project way back to the phone line, as she used to do project management for it. Besides her connection to Mayson and Wisher, she wanted to write poetry alongside others.

“When you’re around community, it just gives you more inspiration, motivation, and desire to want to create,” Diaz shared. “It’s actually really crucial to be in community (in creative spaces) because you have to get feedback.”

Though not directly impacted by gun violence, Diaz has grown up in and around Germantown and understands how heavily it impacts communities. She says people being able to write down their experiences is a powerful way to work through the process of grief.

She continues, citing HVG as a helpful tool: “I think a lot of people without our community, specifically the Black and Brown community, are not given the proper resources to be able to process and experience grief.”

Diaz came alongside her friend, Mars, who had been hearing about the work of Mayson and Wisher for quite some time and wanted to check it out.

She agrees that it was great being able to write next to other people and get instant feedback and affirmation from other folks in the room. She calls that practice, in itself, “a special thing,” as it allows folks to be completely vulnerable and share openly.

Mars grew up in Chicopee, Massachusetts, which is next to Springfield — which had one of the highest rates of gun violence in the state in 2023. Having roots in a city with a gun violence problem helped her understand that, whether directly or indirectly, gun violence impacts everyone.

She says seeing what’s shared in the media heightens her safety concern, citing the bus shooting of three women in Cobbs Creek last week. “I think about, on a psyche level, the ramification that we’re all going through is this ginormous grief that none of us can process,” she shared.

Mars attributes the perceived heightened level of distrust amongst neighbors and humans to these tragedies, stating that people no longer know what to expect from other people.

However, she says poetry is a “bridge to communication” and “showing people that [they’re] not alone in thought.” These workshops indeed walk in that spirit to help connect people and create a larger dialogue amongst people to begin seeking solutions together.

“Coming to create is part of the organizing process,” she said. “Grassroots movements essentially start with the creative imagination.”

Chew & Chelten CDC executive director Douglas Rucker also attended and sits on HVG’s committee as a person in the neighborhood actively working to address gun violence. He’s personally been impacted, as his office was shot at, leaving five bullet holes in the window, and he’s also lost mentees to the violence.

Rucker is the creative mind behind Yo! Put The Gun Down, a Hip-Hop symphony, also addresses the impacts gun violence has on communities. As a director, playwright, and poet himself, Rucker knows the importance of creative-based initiatives as helpful aids for mental health.

“I think this is definitely art therapy at its best,” he said, talking about HVG. “It has therapeutic value.”

He also says that the arts and social commentary go hand-in-hand, as creatives use their creations to give their commentary to the world. “There’s not an artist that’s living that is not in some kind of way socially conscious,” Rucker said.

Aside from tapping into old memories of his father and other former father figures in the neighborhood, Rucker found the workshop invaluable as a source of networking with other creatives. From that workshop, he met another director running a play and went to see it that evening.

“It was a great opportunity to meet ordinary Germantown residents,” he said.

While there are no scheduled workshops for the remainder of the month, folks can stay updated with HVG via their website, where you can access resources.

Mayson thanks all of Germantown for showing their support for this project — and others — and sends a warm welcome to those interested in coming to the workshops. 

She ended, saying, “It’s time that we have these types of community conversations in a different way — through art.”