Heart on Your Sleeve Interview with Streets Dept's Conrad Benner

Read the interview with Conrad Benner here. Excerpts are also below

Conrad Benner: Can you talk about how you got involved in Heart On Your Sleeve?

Molly Gross: As a poet, artist, and board member of the historic incubator for poetry, The Poetry Project (NYC), I was already active in arts communities. Happily I met Ryan soon after moving to Philadelphia. As Ryan writes, our project evolved out of my activations bringing poetry to public spaces. He and I have similar values around how people can access art and poetry, so this idea worked well within his curation framework at Elixr.

Heart on Your Sleeve allowed me to jump right into one of my happy places – working in collaboration! As we mapped out the project, we pulled in the wonderful designer Jonai Gibson-Selix to oversee the look of all Heart on Your Sleeve’s materials, along with Hester Stinnett, a Professor of Printmaking at the Tyler School of Art, who generously offered one of her prints for Jonai to repurpose. We also commissioned the incredible artist Destiny Palmer to respond to the poems in a new textile artwork on view at Elixr’s downtown location.

At a Bok Building open house early last year, I learned about the outstanding Philadelphia Printworks (PPW) and their powerful line of t-shirts that often center racial justice. Along with Maryam Pugh, the owner, Ryan, Jonai, and I developed the idea of a long sleeve t-shirt to celebrate the poets. The shirt will be available on PPW’s website, Elixr Center City (S. Sydenham), and The Print Center starting on January 13th

Me holding the January 2023 sleeve poem by Dilruba Ahmed. Photo by Conrad Benner

Conrad: How did y’all curate the poets? What were their responses to this idea?

Ryan Strand Greenberg and Molly: We wanted to invite poets who have deep history both in the poetry community and in Philadelphia. As each poet came on board, we asked them to invite another poet into the project, so they were all involved in the evolution of this amazing group that includes: Sojourner Ahebee, Dilruba Ahmed, Husnaa Haajarah Hashim, Sham-e-Ali Nayeem, Ursula Rucker, and Eleanor Wilner. This was a small way of supporting networks of writers who honor lineages, histories, and legacies.

The poets were game to bring their work literally into the hands of the public, understanding that poems on coffee sleeves can be an entry point into the world of poetry. There is also a QR code on the sleeves for people to learn more about each poet on Elixr’s website.

Conrad: What role does the Poetry Project (NYC) play the project?

Molly: The Poetry Project helped us both to pay the poets — an essential part of this project! — and to help promote the Heart on Your Sleeve, both to their audiences and to the literary community here in Philadelphia. Their spirit of generosity has been incredible throughout the project.

December 2021 Sleeve poem by Sham-e-Ali Nareem. Photo by Conrad Benner.

Conrad: What do you love about this project?

Molly: I love love love working with the poets, artists, and Ryan. What an amazing collaborative spirit! A project is the energy of the people who are behind it and I feel proud of what we have been able to create together.

Ryan: I agree! I love working together with the amazing artists in Philadelphia to bring beauty and meaning into the daily life of the community at large.

Jonai Gibson-Selix: I love the multitude of ways Heart on Your Sleeve activates the public space with such subtlety, and I hope that it can be a creative contribution to the ongoing conversation about what public art can be.