Rachel Hsu’s new outdoor sculpture, The Weight of Our Living, invites us to stop and listen, connecting our physical experience with emotion. It is intended to be a meditative journey inspired, among other things, by poetry.
On the bench, you’ll find Hsu’s own poetry inscribed:
Is it a bearable pain?
Make a fist, then open.
Tread barefoot until you become tender.
On Saturday, September 28th, head to Maja Park—the site of The Weight of Our Living—for a free poetry workshop with former Philadelphia Poet Laureate Trapeta B. Mayson, joined by the artist, Rachel Hsu. No registration necessary! Mayson will kick off the event with a reading, followed by three activities centered on the themes in Hsu’s work. Participants will also receive a free notebook and pen from the Association for Public Art.
2020-2021 Philadelphia Poet Laureate TRAPETA B. MAYSON is the founder of the Healing Verse Poetry Line, 1-855-PoemRX2, which offers a new, healing, and affirming poem weekly, along with mental health resources. She is a Poets Laureate Fellow with the Academy of American Poets and a recipient of the Pew Fellowship in Literature and the Leeway Transformation Award, among others. She is the author of She Was Once Herself and Mocha Melodies. Mayson also released two music and poetry projects, SCAT and This Is How We Get Through, in collaboration with the late internationally acclaimed jazz guitarist, Monnette Sudler. Her other publications include submissions in The American Poetry Review, Epiphany Literary Journal, Aesthetica Magazine, Margie: The American Journal of Poetry among others. She is a graduate of Temple University, Bryn Mawr Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research and Villanova University School of Business. Also a licensed clinical social worker, Mayson combines her artistic and clinical and civic work to create special projects that foster healing. A native of Liberia, Mayson was raised in the United States and currently lives in Philadelphia.