Power Up: Personal Poetry and Collage

L'Merchie Frazier is an award-winning visual artist, poet, performance artist and Education Director of Boston’s African American History Museum. An artist who has regularly contributed stunning works to Violence Transformed (and is currently curating our “Focus on Freedom” Exhibit at RCC), this year she followed a Grand Rounds presentation on Violence Transformed at Shattuck Hospital with a presentation and Haiku Poetry and Visual Art Collage workshop at Shattuck Hospital. Her presentation introduced the history and 5-7-5 format of the traditionally Japanese haiku poem and shared with workshop attendees (health care providers from Shattuck Hospital and Violence Transformed) the ways in which the haiku format could enable patients to find new avenues of expression and self-exploration. She then led attendees in a series of literary and visual art making activities that they might adapt with their own patients to support self discovery. The workshop engaged participants both individually and collectively, in poetry, storytelling and visual art making. The workshop was co-sponsored by Robert McMackin, M.D. of Shattuck Hospital and Barry Gaither, Executive Director, Museum of the National Center of Afro-American Artists.