Featuring Healing Verse Germantown events upcoming in Germantown and throughout Philadelphia. Filter by category to find community poetry workshops, free cultural events, public art activations, community engagement opportunities, and more.
As part of the Healing Verse Germantown (HVG) Public Art Exhibition, a film of the poem “Mama Song” by Darlene Wilson-Bennett will be screening at EMIR Healing Center on select dates during the exhibition (April 11-June 6, 2026).
“Mama Song” illustrates by Wilson-Bennett’s journey through grief following the loss of her son, Justin. The poem was transformed into the short film by local filmmaker Eboni Zamani of Pearl Girl Productions in collaboration with EMIR (Every Murder is Real) Healing Center.
In the film, a group of mothers, who have experienced loss due to gun violence and have found a supportive community at EMIR, recite the poem. The group includes EMIR founder Victoria Greene who created the center following the murder of her son Emir thirty years ago. The collective reading of the poem transforms one poet’s grief into a shared testament.
Mama Song
Darlene Wilson-Bennett
You grew in my womb
Your heartbeat, my soul
I took it for granted you’d see me grow old
Who told you that you could leave me?
When I say my oldest is dead
Some shrink back like murder’s contagious
I’m just a book with many missing pages
I am a rock to the point of my own crumbling
Your life expectancy was shorter
But your legacy is growing through your daughter
We raise her, love her, and speak the words
As if you taught her
As part of the Healing Verse Germantown (HVG) Public Art Exhibition, a t-shirt featuring the poem “Trying to Heal” by Sifiyah Cupit will be distributed at EMIR Healing Center on select dates during the exhibition (April 11-June 6, 2026) as supplies last.
In “Trying to Heal,” Cupit reflects on a time when life felt joyful and communal before the disruption of gun violence. The public artwork consists of t-shirts, designed by M Slater, in colors that Cupit remembers from annual family reunions when her great aunt encouraged everyone to wear the same unifying color. The shirts, which will be freely distributed, invite the community to share in that sense of kinship.
Trying to Heal
Sifiyah Cupit
When I walk down the street,
it doesn’t feel like I’m moving.
It feels as if life is keeping still
while I try to heal.
I remember the times
gunshots woke me out my sleep
and made my heart skip a beat.
The wind blows harder,
and the memories fly away.
I leave my window open,
hoping they find their way.
